Ethno-Religious Communities: To the Problem of Identity Markers

2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Arakelova
Keyword(s):  
Religious Communities ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Identity Markers

AbstractThe paper focuses on the phenomenon of ethno-religiousness and, particularly, on the process of the formation of ethno-religious communities. In the spotlight of the research is the Yezidi identity—the stages of its formation from the new syncretic mentality, initially exclusively with the religious vector, and later having acquired the drive to ethnicity. The similar processes can be traced in other cases of ethno-religious identities, e.g., the Mandaeans and the Druzes, both cases being used as comparative material.

“Are You Married?”: Gender and Faith in Political Ethnographic Research

2021 ◽  
pp. 089124162098685
Author(s):  
Helene Thibault
Keyword(s):  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Religious Conversion ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Political Ethnography ◽  
Identity Markers ◽  
Sensitive Issues ◽  
Foreign Woman

In this article, I look at how political ethnography can contribute to the study of religious dynamics within conservative religious communities. Based on fieldwork conducted in Tajikistan within conservative Muslim circles, I take a reflexive stance by arguing that my informants used my status as a single foreign woman to steer interactions toward those of my religious conversion and need for marriage. Their repeated efforts and our interactions exposed the depth of their religious beliefs and its precedence over other identity markers such as ethnicity and language. This close access also allowed me to witness the exclusion and distrust that conservative Muslims face from the rest of the society as well as state authorities. Ultimately, I argue that political ethnography enables the production of a more nuanced portrait of conservative Muslims communities, which are often represented as hermetic and hostile. Political ethnography can be particularly useful to investigate sensitive issues such as religious identities and their complex relations to structures of power.

scholarly journals ‘In times of crisis, followers of one true god unite’

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (19) ◽  
pp. 119-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kiran Vinod Bhatia
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
School Students ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Online Networks ◽  
Social Media Networks ◽  
Media Ethnography ◽  
Village Communities

This paper is based on a research study designed to explore how adolescents, in situations of political polarization, deploy online networks to articulate, negotiate, and enact their political and religious identities. Based on social media ethnography tracing the online engagements of 44 high school students over a period of eighteen months, and supplemented with in-depth interviews conducted in their village communities, this study explores why social media networks emerge as ideological niches frequented by students to enact their participation as members of their respective religious communities. It suggests that in situation of experienced political polarization and discrimination, students use social media affordances to replicate their offline socio-political and religious engagements onto their virtual spaces and in the process reinforce their radical religious identities.

scholarly journals Islam’s Encounter with English and Ismail al-Faruqi’s Concept of Islamic English: A Postcolonial Reading

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Md. Mahmudul Hasan
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
British Colonialism ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
The Past ◽  
Binary Relationship ◽  
Indigenous Groups ◽  
Communication Interaction ◽  
Semantic Associations

In the past, many Muslims maintained strong reservations about using English as a means of communication, interaction, and intellectual practices mainly due to its association with British colonialism. In the postcolonial world Muslims and other religious communities, as well as various ethnic and indigenous groups, have moved away from the ideological and political assumptions of a binary relationship between English and their cultural and religious identities. As a result, several hundred million Muslims now use English as their first or second language, and more books on Islam are published in it than in any other language. However, Ismail al-Faruqi (1921-86) sees a serious anomaly in how Muslim names and Islamic theological terms are transliterated and translated, as the dominant practice shows not a loyalty to meaning, but to the norms of the target language. Such an approach causes these names and terms to lose semantic associations and religious connotations. To rectify this, al-Faruqi proposes the introduction of “Islamic English.” Based on his linguistic diagnosis and remedy, I will discuss this approach from a postcolonial perspective. 

Confessionalism and Mobility in Early Modern Ireland

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Church Of Ireland ◽  
Confessional Identity ◽  
Migratory Experience

This is a book about the intersection between processes of mobility and religious identity and practice in Early Modern Ireland. The period between c.1580 and c.1685 was one of momentous importance in terms of the establishment of different confessional identities in the island, and various typesof mobility played a key role in the development, articulation, and maintenance of separate religious communities. Part I examines the dialectic between migration and religious adherence, paying particular attention to the transnational dimension of clerical formation which played a vital role in shaping the competing Catholic, Church of Ireland, and non-conformist clergies. Part II investigates how more quotidian practices of mobility such as pilgrimage and interparochial communions helped to elaborate religious identities and the central role of figurative images of movement in structuring Christians’ understanding of their lives. The final chapters of the book analyze the extraordinary importance of migratory experience in shaping the lives and writings of the authors of key confessional identity texts. Hitherto underestimated or taken for granted, the book argues that migrants and exiles were of crucial significance in forging the self-understanding of the different religious communities of the island.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
John Coffey
Keyword(s):  
Group Identity ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Reformation England ◽  
Politics Of Religion ◽  
History Of ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Lay Experience

This chapter begins with a brief sketch of the history of Protestant Dissent in post-Reformation England. It then introduces the influential tradition of denominational historiography, before examining how this ‘vertical’ approach to Dissenting history has been critiqued by historians who take a ‘horizontal’ approach—focusing on the politics of religion in a specific era or moment. Whiggish, teleological, and partisan histories of Anglicanism and Dissent have been displaced by histories that stress political contingency and the fluidity of post-Reformation religious identities. The chapter argues that historians should not overreact to the excesses of denominational historiography; they should recognize that the Stuart era did witness the formation of Dissenting denominations, as religious communities went to great lengths to sharpen the boundaries of group identity. It concludes by surveying recent trends in the historiography, including work on scholarly editions, dissenting women, the literature of dissent, lay experience, theology, exile, and migration.

Too Muslim or not Muslim enough? Exploring identity negotiations for women visual artists in Australia

2021 ◽  
pp. 144078332110214
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Ralph ◽  
Margaret Gibson
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Background ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Visual Artists ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Identity Negotiations ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Identity Markers

The title of this article is deliberately provocative aiming to trouble the imposition of identity fixations and reductive assumptions on creative endeavours and outputs. This article is based on a research project which investigated the identity negotiations and representational responsibilities of women visual artists of Muslim faith and/or cultural background practising and exhibiting their artwork in Australia. This article shows how artists sometimes embrace certain identity markers in order to gain opportunities and promote forms of visibility and debate. At the same time, artists can feel the limitations of being pigeonholed and scrutinised because they have not met the normative and moral expectations of their cultural and religious communities as well as those of communities and organisations associated with the arts sector they have been associated with or with which they may wish to have a future association.

scholarly journals Dying your own way?

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-257
Author(s):  
Marta Dominguez Diaz
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Self Perception ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Identity Markers

This article explores how two religious traditions, Judaism and Islam, confer meaning on the phenomenon of mortality, and it examines how their adherents seek to make sense of death in 21st century Britain. This research scrutinizes the religious identities of these two groups within the context of British multiculturalism, and it proposes approaching the manners in which death is perceived and experienced by Muslims and Jews as identity markers. The article argues that death issues contribute to the processes of collective labelling, self-perception and definition, through the perspective of religion. This inquiry will try to elucidate how the study of doctrines and practices to do with death can provide a meaningful platform for exploring identity boundaries. What does it mean to be a Jew or a Muslim in Britain today? Can the ways in which Jews and Muslims relate to mortality help us to answer this?

scholarly journals RELIGION AND THE PROBLEM OF NEW IDENTITIES IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD

2021 ◽  
pp. 126-135
Author(s):  
AZAMAT ZH. IDRISSOV ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Global Dimension ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Role Of Religion

This article studies the role of religion in the formation of new identities. Religion is presented as an alternative to secular nationalism and the revival of new religious identities as a reaction to the crisis of the secular type of nation-building. The first part of the article shows the historical background of the crisis of the theory of secularization and the “religious renaissance”, which was an attempt to return religion to public discourse. Religious identity is considered as a strict construct that is formed by certain actors using various mechanisms. The types of construction of religious identity are considered from three sides using the terms of M. Castells as the problem of “legitimizing identity”, “resistance identity” and identity as a “project”. Analyzing the role of religion in the formation of new identities the author comes to the following conclusions: 1) religion acts as a factor of legitimacy in new religious communities, where religion offers a sacred justification for power; 2) religion acts as a factor of protection of one's own identity under the wave of globalization, which acts as a hostile dominant identity; 3) the religious community acts as a separate “imagined” construct, which in the global dimension erases linguistic and ethnic boundaries, but acts as a dividing factor in local conflicts...

scholarly journals TOLERANSI DAN INTERAKSI SOSIAL ANTAR PEMELUK AGAMA DI CIGUGUR, KUNINGAN

Harmoni ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 51-72
Author(s):  
Marpuah Marpuah
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Mutual Cooperation ◽  
Religious People ◽  
Social Facts ◽  
Hereditary Factors ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Religious Differences

Penelitian   ini   dilakukan   di   kelurahan   Cigugur   karena   termasuk   wilayah   yang   pluralis      dan      masyarakat      hetrogen.      Instrumen    penelitian    yang    digunakan    adalah : Observasi, wawancara, dan  dokumentasi.  Berdasarkan  hasil  penelitian  dapat  diketahui  Kerukunan  yang  terbina  di  Kelurahan  Cigugur  mereka  berprinsip:   Perbedaan   keyakinan   itu   timbul   dari   kebenaran  hatinya  dan  keyakinan  masing-masing  pemeluk  agama.    Adanya  faktor  keturunan   yang   membuat   kondusipnya   Kelurahan  Cigugur.  Dalam  hal  ini  fakta  sosial   di   masyarakat   adanya   identitas   agama  yang  berbeda  dalam  satu  rumah.  Warga  masyarakat  yang  berbeda  pemeluk  agamanya memiliki sifat kegotong-royongan yang  membuat  penduduk  itu  bisa  rukun.  Apabila  ada  satu  kelurahan  mengadakan  kegiatan   perbaikan   jalan,   membangun   Masjid,   warga   tersebut   mendukungnya   terhadap   kegiatan   tersebut,   baik   secara moril maupun materil atau secara financial semampuhnya mereka, tanpa membedakan agama. Dalam siklus kehidupan (Kelahiran, Sunatan,   Pernikahan,    dan    Kematian),    warga  kelurahan  Cigugur  nampak  adanya  kebersamaan,    sikap    toleransi    terhadap    perbedaan agama, dan adanya kerja sama. Kata  kunci:  Toleransi,  Umat  Beragama,  Interaksi, Cigugur This research was conducted in the Cigugur village because it is a pluralist region and a heterogeneous  community.  The  research  instruments     used     were     observation,     interviews,  and  documentation.  Based  on  the results of the study it can be seen that harmony is built in Cigugur Village because they  have  principles.  The  difference  in  beliefs  arises  from  the  truth  of  his  heart,  and the beliefs of each religion. There are hereditary  factors  that  make  the  Cigugur  Village conducive. In this case, social facts in the community indicate the existence of different  religious  identities  in  one  house.  Members of different religious communities have  a  mutual  cooperation  that  can  make  the residents harmonious. If there is a village that conducts road improvement activities, builds  a  mosque,  the  residents  support  it, morally and materially, or financially as much as they can, regardless of religion. In the life cycle (birth, circumcision, marriage, and death), residents of the Cigugur village appear  to  be  together.  They  are  tolerant  of  religious  differences,  and  also  there  is  cooperation. Keywords:   Tolerance,   Religious   People,   Interaction, Cigugur

scholarly journals The Youth of Muslim Diaspora and Identity Markers: The Crossroads of School, Religion, and Society

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 41
Author(s):  
Souheil Essid
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Private School ◽  
Sociological Perspective ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Religious Identification ◽  
Immigrant Background ◽  
Identity Markers ◽  
Muslim School ◽  
People’S Perceptions

This study addresses the religious identification of young people from an immigrant background in the context of a sociological perspective. This study is essentially focused on young people's perceptions of their religious identities. We tried to understand the religious markers exhibited by young people attending a religious Muslim school in Canada. How do these students construct identity in the gears of religion, school, home society and parental culture? Young people are thus given the opportunity to express their identity-building perspectives. Through an ethnographic stay, the data collection took place in a private school located in Quebec, Canada. The data analysis allowed us to identify some religious identity markers developed by participants during their biographical and social paths. Participants are hence distinguished as a cultural group in a minority context. These religious markers also seem more adapted to the context of young people and more open to others

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