"Muslims in the Modern Sense": Kabyles Negotiating Religious Identity in the Czech Republic

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216275%3A25210%2F18%3A39914077" target="_blank" >RIV/00216275:25210/18:39914077 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

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DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

"Muslims in the Modern Sense": Kabyles Negotiating Religious Identity in the Czech Republic

Original language description

In this paper, I examine the dynamics of deterritorilized identities of Kabyle immigrants to the Czech Republic focusing on the interconnection between ethnicity (i.e. Kabyle), national identity (i.e. Algerian), and religious identity (i.e. Muslim). In contrast with other immigrants’ groups coming from Muslim countries to Europe (such as Pakistanis in Great Britain or Algerian Arabs in France), Kabyles in the Czech Republic do not use their religious identity as a boundary marker and as a symbol of unification and exclusion. There are multiple reasons for this situation. Already in Algeria, Kabyles have an ambivalent relationship with Islam. The process of colonization and the subsequent construction of Algerian national identity, which stresses Arab identity, has excluded Kabyles, and has had a negative impact on their perception of Islam. Kabyle immigrants associate ‘kabylity’ with secular principles, modernity, individualism, and freedom. I analyze how their ideas about ‘kabylity’ and the specific character of their migration shape their religious practice. Despite their ambivalence towards Islam, many of them declare themselves as Muslims. They often rely on the phrase ‘Muslim in the modern sense’ in order to describe their religious identity. I interpret the meaning of these declarations and illustrate how this attitude serves as an efficient strategy for integration into an Islamophobic Czech society.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

C - Chapter in a specialist book

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

50404 - Anthropology, ethnology

Project

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Continuities

N - Vyzkumna aktivita podporovana z neverejnych zdroju

Publication year

2018

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Book/collection name

Islam in the West. Perceptions and Reactions

ISBN

978-0-19-948711-0

Number of pages of the result

18

Pages from-to

197-214

Number of pages of the book

266

Publisher name

Oxford &amp; IBH Publ Co PVT Ltd

Place of publication

New Delhi

UT code for WoS chapter

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