Lived Islam: religious identity with 'non-organized' Muslim minorities

The purpose of this article is to show how a focus on 'non-organized' Muslims in Europe can contribute with insights on the everyday lives and practices of Muslim minorities. The empirical foundation is interviews conducted in Germany and Denmark. I argue that by focusing on institutionali...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ethnic and racial studies 2011-07, Vol.34 (7), p.1134-1151
Main Author: Jeldtoft, Nadia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activism
Activists
Attitudes
Cultural identity
Denmark
Ethnic minorities
everyday religion
Federal Republic of Germany
Germany
Identity
Interviews
Islam
Islam in Europe
lived Islam
Minority & ethnic groups
Minority Groups
Muslim minorities
Muslims
non-organized religion
Pragmatism
Privatization
Religiosity
Religious beliefs
religious identity
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Summary:The purpose of this article is to show how a focus on 'non-organized' Muslims in Europe can contribute with insights on the everyday lives and practices of Muslim minorities. The empirical foundation is interviews conducted in Germany and Denmark. I argue that by focusing on institutionalized forms of Islam we run the risk of reifying Muslims as being 'all about Islam'. The article reflects and discusses the benefits of adapting the framework of lived religion methodologically to investigate how Muslim makes sense of Islam on a micro-level. I show how the interviewees in this study have reconfigured religious practices, or no practice at all, which is connected to attitudes of privatization, individualization and pragmatism. The everyday practices and identities can be seen as expressions of minority identities, and as a type of individualized religiosity, and I discuss how these identities are different from the identities of activist and vocal Muslims.
ISSN:0141-9870
1466-4356
DOI:10.1080/01419870.2010.528441