Islam and Culture: Dis/junctures in a Modern Conceptual Terrain

摘要: Over the last decades, Europe debates on Islam have been framed increasingly through lens of cultural difference. In this discursive climate, culture constitutes a crucial terrain investment for European Muslims in their struggle inclusion and recognition. Based two different ethnographic research projects among Muslims, essay examines distinct types discourses. One employs an Islam-versus-culture trope that serves to disconnect from certain patriarchal practices perceived exist within Muslim communities. The other discourse defends intrinsic symbiotic link between culture, especially order elevate place artistic To make sense these seeming contradictions, I explore multivalent meanings contained my interlocutors’ uses concept by tracing respective genealogies meanings. This includes investigation culture's conceptual histories, formulated successively Enlightenment thinkers, Romanticists, early anthropologists, as well Islamic reformers more recent successors. My into histories exposes broader concerns about individual freedom agency part theorists, which furthermore enabled various claims modernity backwardness. While creatively integrate articulations world-making projects, argue ontological assumptions underpinning continue haunt render precarious efforts demonstrate belonging via culture.