Between Tradition and Innovation

Religious Practices and Everyday Life of Second-Generation Muslim Women

Authors

  • Ivana Acocella University of Florence
  • Silvia Cataldi Sapienza University of Rome
  • Katia Cigliuti University of Florence

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.29964

Keywords:

intersectionality, Islam in Europe, religious practices, young second-generation Muslim

Abstract

The article focuses on the identity construction and recognition strategies adopted by young second-generation Muslim women living in Italy. The research was conducted by collecting life stories with the goal of investigating the processes of identity building in the private and in the public sphere. Moving from two key concepts, agency and intersectionality, the study explores those challenges and tensions which arise from the multi-membership (intra-ethnic and inter-ethnic; intra-generational and inter-generational) and from the interconnection of different social categories (gender, religious beliefs, age and ethnic origins) of young Muslim females. At the end of the study, the biographies are analysed inductively in order to identify different ideal-types of profiles of subjectification which vehiculate different gender and religious identity patterns.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

  • Ivana Acocella, University of Florence

    Ivana Acocella is a Lecturer of Methodology of Social Sciences and Sociology of Immigration at University of Florence, Italy. Since 2002, she has taught methodology and research methods for the social sciences. Her research focuses on epistemological and methodological assessment of qualitative research approaches. Her main research topic is immigration, with a focus on the second generation and Islam in Europe.

  • Silvia Cataldi, Sapienza University of Rome

    Silvia Cataldi is a Lecturer of Sociology at Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. Since her PhD in 2005, she has taught methodology and research methods for the social sciences. Her research focuses on the epistemological and methodological assessment of research through qualitative and quantitative approaches and young people’s attitudes.

  • Katia Cigliuti, University of Florence

    Katia Cigliuti holds a PhD in Methodology of Social Sciences from the University of Florence, Italy. Her research interests focus on qualitative methodology and epistemology and on second-generation Muslims. In 2014 she published a book on the construction of fieldnotes (Firenze University Press).

References

Abou-Bakr, Omaima 2001. “Islamic Feminism: What’s in a Name? Preliminary Reflections”, Middle East Women’s Studies Review, XV.4, 8-11.

Abu-Lughod, Lila 2002. “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflection on Cultural Relativism and Its Others”, American Anthropologist, 104.3, 783-790. DOI: 10.1525/aa.2002.104.3.783

Afkhami, Mahnaz. 1995 ed. Faith and Freedom: Women's Human Rights in the Muslim World. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.

Ahearn, Laura M. 2001. “Language and Agency”, Annual Review of Anthropology, 30, 109-137. DOI: 10.1146/annurev.anthro.30.1.109

Amiraux, V. 2000. “Jeunes Musulmanes Turques d’Allemagne. Voix et Voies de l’Individuation”, in F. Dassetto ed. Paroles d’Islam: Individus, Sociétés et Discours dans l’Islam Européen Contemporain. Paris: Maisonneuve-Larose, 101-123.

Babès, Leila. 1997. L’Islam Positif. La Religion des Jeunes Musulmans de France. Paris: Les Éditions de l’Atelier.

Badran, Margot 2005 “Between Secular and Islamic Feminism/s, Reflections on the Middle East and Beyond”, Journal of Middle East Women's studies, 1.1, 6-28. URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40326847

Badran, Margot. 2009. Feminism in Islam: Secular and Religious Convergences. Oxford: Oneworld.

Barazangi, Nimat H. 2004. Woman’s Identity and the Quran: a New Reading. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

Beck, Ulrich and Beck-Gernsheim, Elisabeth 2009. “Global Generations and the Trap of Methodological Nationalism for a Cosmopolitan Turn in the Sociology of Youth and Generation”, European Sociological Review, 25.1, 25-36. DOI:10.1093/esr/jcn032

Butler, Judith 1993. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of «Sex». New York: Routledge.

Caritas-Migrantes 2011. Dossier Statistico Immigrazione 2011. XXI Rapporto. Roma: Idos Edizioni.

Casanova, José 1994. Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Cesari, J. 2000. “La Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes: Le Discours Islamique en France”, in F. Dassetto ed. Paroles d’Islam: Individus, Sociétés et Discours Dans l’Islam Européen Contemporain. Paris: Maisonneuve-Larose, 87-100.

Cesari, Jocelyne 2004. When Islam and Democracy Meet: Muslims in Europe and in the United States. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Cressey, Donald R. 1950. “The criminal violation of financial trust”, American Sociological Review, 15.6, 738-743. DOI: 10.2307/2086606

Dassetto, F. 2000. “Discourse, sociétés et individus dans l’islam éuropéen”, in F. Dassetto ed. Paroles d’Islam: Individus, Sociétés et Discours dans l’Islam Européen Contemporain, Paris: Maisonneuve-Larose, 13-34.

Denzin, Norman K. 1989. The Research Act: A Theoretical Introduction to Sociological Methods. Prentice Hall: Englewood Cliffs.

Denzin, Norman K. 2001. “The reflexive interview and a performative social science”, Qualitative Research, 1.1, 23-46. DOI: 10.1177/146879410100100102

Elder, G. H., Johnson, M. K. and Crosnoe, R. 2003. “The Emergence and development of life course theory”, in J. T. Mortimer and M. J. Shanahan eds. Handbook of the life course, New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 3-19.

Göle, Nilüfer 2005. Interpénétrations: L’Islam et l’Europe. Paris: Galaade Éditions.

Johnson, P. 1998. “Analytic Induction”, in G. Symon and C. Cassell eds. Qualitative Methods and Analysis in Organizational Research. London: Sage, 28-50.

Hallaq, Wael B. 2009. An Introduction to Islamic Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Korteweg, Anna C. 2008. “The Sharia Debate in Ontario: Gender, Islam and Representations of Muslim women’s Agency”, Gender & Society, 22.4, 434-454. DOI: 10.1177/0891243208319768

Krippendorf, Klaus 1980. Content Analysis. An Introduction to its Methodology. Beverly Hills: Sage.

Levitt, Peggy 2009. “Roots and Routes: Understanding the Lives of the Second Generation Transnationally”, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 35.7, 1225-1242. DOI: 10.1080/13691830903006309

Mernissi, Fatima 2002. Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World. Cambridge: Perseus.

Moors, Annalies and Salih, Ruba 2009. “‘Muslim women’ in Europe: Secular Normativities, Bodily Performances and Multiple Publics”, Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale, 17.4, 375-378. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-8676.2009.00090.x

Portes, Alejandro and Rumbaut, Ruben 2001. Legacies. The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation. Berkeley-New York: University of California Press-Russel, Sage Foundation.

Ramadan, Tariq 2004. Western Muslims and the Future of Political Islam. New York: Oxford University Press.

Ritchie, Donald A. 2003. Doing Oral History: A Practical Guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rosenthal, Gabriele 1993. “Reconstruction of Life Stories”, The Narrative Study of Lives, 1, 59-91. Url: http://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/handle/document/5929

Roy, O. 2000. “L’Individualisation dans l’Islam Européen Contemporain”, in F. Dassetto ed. Paroles d’Islam: Individus, Sociétés et Discours dans l’Islam Européen Contemporain. Paris: Maisonneuve-Larose, 69-84.

Roy, Olivier 2002. L’Islam Mondialisé. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.

Roy, Olivier 2005. La Laïcité Face à l’Islam. Paris: Éditions Stock.

Roy, Olivier 2008. La Sainte Ignorance. Le Temps de la Religion Sans Culture. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.

Saint-Blancat, Chantal 2002. “Islam in diaspora: Between Reterritorialization and Extraterritoriality”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 26.1, 138-151. DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.00368

Saint-Blancat, Chantal 2004. “La Transmission de l’islam auprès des nouvelles générations de la diaspora”, Social Compass, 51.2, 235-247. DOI: 10.1177/0037768604043009

Salih, Ruba 2003. Gender in Transnationalism. Home, Longing and Belonging Among Moroccan Migrant Women. New York: Routledge.

Salih, Ruba 2009. “Muslim women, fragmented secularism and the construction of interconnected ‘publics’ in Italy”, Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale, 17.4, 409-423. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-8676.2009.00085.x

Scott, Joan W. 2007. The Politics of the Veil. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Tribalat, Michèle 1995. Faire France. Une Grande Enquête sur les Immigrés et Leurs Enfants. Paris: Éditions La Découverte.

Yuval-Davis, Nira 2006. “Belonging and the politics of belonging”, Patterns of Prejudice, 40.3, 196-213. DOI: 10.1080/00313220600769331

Waardenburg, J. 2000. “Normative Islam in Europe”, in F. Dassetto ed. Paroles d’Islam: Individus, Sociétés et Discours dans l’Islam Européen Contemporain. Paris: Maisonneuve-Larose, 49-68.

Published

2017-04-20

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Acocella, I., Cataldi, S., & Cigliuti, K. (2017). Between Tradition and Innovation: Religious Practices and Everyday Life of Second-Generation Muslim Women. Fieldwork in Religion, 11(2), 199-216. https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.29964