In the Western nation-state, the government, the media and the dominant culture determine who is regarded as a minority and what constitutes difference, whether ethnic, religious or otherwise. The attributes of groups used as markers of difference can change over time, but increasingly religion is used as an immutable marker

Nieuwkerk, K. van

Leiden University Scholary Publications

ISIM4 I S I M N E W S L E T T E R 7 / 0 1Po st -Do c tor a l Pr o jec tK A R I N VA N N I E U W K E R K Migrating IslamChanges in Religious DiscourseWhat is at stake in discourses about religiousdifference is an underlying concept of a rei-fied and essentialized culture. According toBauman (1999), there are two theories of cul-ture: the essentialist and the processual theo-ry of culture. That is, culture is comprehend-ed as something one has, or as a process oneshapes.The interesting point Bauman makes is thatthe social scientist should not make a simplechoice between the ‘wrong’ essentialist and‘right’ processual notion of culture, butshould study the reasons and processes bywhich people change from an essentialistdiscourse into the processual discourse andvice versa. People are endowed with a ‘dualdiscursive competence’. They know when toreify their own religious identity and when toquery their own reification.The study on ‘Migrating Islam: Changes inReligious Discourse among Moroccan Mi-grant Women in the Netherlands’ focuses onthe ‘discursive competence’ of the studygroup. The religious perceptions, practicesand identifications of female believers arerelatively neglected in current research.Women often symbolize and demarcateboundaries between social, religious andethnic groups. In many studies, women aretherefore particularly analysed as symbols.‘Women as religious actors’ is a less well-documented phenomenon. This study per-ceives women as agents who actively shapereligious practices.‘Migrating Islam’ will be investigated attwo intertwined levels: that of speakingabout Islam and its central tenets and that ofreligious practice. Upon migration, Islam un-dergoes a dual process of universalizationand localization. Among young generations,there is a tendency to reject the parents’conformity to pre-migration cultural tradi-tions. They strive for an authentic universalIslam. Thus, the change in religious dis-course among the generations should besystematically compared.This research consists of two parts. Themore general part will analyse the mainchanges in religious experience and practiceas a result of migration to the Netherlands. Itfocuses on the way women speak aboutIslam, its perceived adaptability to new cir-cumstances, its changing meaning in dailylife. It will particularly focus on such centralconceptions as halal and haram and docu-ment changes among the generations.The second part provides an in-depthstudy of the religious concept of ajr (reli-gious merit). Ajr points to the spiritual com-pensation one obtains for meritoriousdeeds. Collecting ajr is particularly impor-tant in the religious experience and practiceof women. There are indications that thiscentral concern of spiritual life in Moroccochanges upon migration to the Netherlands.In general, it appears to be more difficult tocollect ajr in the Dutch context. Severalmeans of gaining merit, such as by visitinggraves, is almost absent in the new context.New forms of meritorious deeds, mostly re-lated to dress code, appear to gain promi-nence in the new secular circumstances. Dis-tinctions between the universal and essen-tial versus the cultural and non-essential inreligious doctrines appear to be sorted out.Changing practices of collecting merit thusprovide insight into processes of localizationand universalization of Islamic discourse.New local productions of Islamic discourseappear to take on a universal form. ◆Karin van Nieuwkerk is a lecturer in social anthropol-ogy, Middle East Studies and Mediterranean Studiesat Nijmegen University, the Netherlands, and is a fel-low at the ISIM. She is author of A Trade Like AnyOther: Female Singers and Dancers in Egypt, TexasUniversity Press (1995).E-mail: K.v.Nieuwkerk@let.kun.nlIn the Western nation-state, the government, themedia and the dominant culture determine who is re-garded as a minority and what constitutes differ-ence, whether ethnic, religious or otherwise. The at-tributes of groups used as markers of difference canchange over time, but increasingly religion is used asan immutable marker.

Migrating Islam Changes in Religious Discourse

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Migrating Islam Changes in Religious Discourse

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