Ethnicity, Religion, and Identity



INST 312-MULTICULTURAL EUROPE: Ethnicity, Religion, and Identity Politics

Fall Semester 2009

Dr. Ahmet Yukleyen

Office: Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Leavell Hall, Room 107

Office hours: Wednesday, 12:00-2:00 pm and by appointment

Email: yukleyen@olemiss.edu

Phone : (662) 915 5733

Course Description

Is there a common European identity? The emergence of ethnic and religious diversity in Europe since the end of World War II challenges secular nation-states in Europe.

The persistence of ethnic identity (i.e. the Basques in Spain), the rise of Muslim immigrants, and the partition of ex-Yugoslavia redefines the boundaries of multicultural Europe. This course explores theoretical perspectives on ethnicity, nation, race, culture, and religion to explain the emergence of ethnic and religious minorities in the European public sphere. Identity politics reflects on how minorities negotiate their ethnic and religious belonging.

We will use these theoretical insights to examine contemporary challenges of multicultural Europe. For instance, there is intense public attention to Islam and Muslims in Europe due to global security concerns after September 11, 2001. We will explore the diversity of more ten million Muslims and Islam in the West to understand if Islamic and Western ways of life (in)compatible. However, ethno-religious identity politics is not limited to Muslim communities. We will compare Muslim ethno-politics with other cases such as the Basques in Spain and Irish separatist movements to understand how ethnic and religious identities shape European public sphere. We will examine and compare the European nation-states’ responses to the demands of ethnic and religious minorities. Conflicting economic interests affect ethnic and religious identities as well. This course aims to explore the economic, political, social, and cultural reasons and consequences of conflict and conformity in multicultural Europe.

This course examines the various immigrant and indigenous ethno-religious communities in Europe from holistic and comparative perspective of several disciplines including cultural anthropology, political science, and international relations. We will integrate the social, economic, political, as well as the cultural and daily aspects to gain fuller understanding of different ways of being an ethno-religious minority in multicultural European societies. Students are expected to learn the social, economic, and cultural structure of identity politics and to appreciate cultural diversity as it unfolds in Europe.

Required Text:

Reading Packet for INST 312 (available at Copy Time, 407 South 11th Street, Phone:

662 234 2679)

Requirements:

Attendance and participation 15%

Midterm Exam I 25%

Midterm Exam II 25%

Final Exam 35%

Regular class attendance, careful reading, and participation in class discussion are required and makes up 15% of course grade. Discussion is the heart and soul of education. There are two midterm exams and a final exam.

Schedule of Topics and Readings

Part I: Identity Politics in Europe

Week 1 (Aug 25, 27): International Politics of Identity

What is identity politics? What is the role of identity politics in the international arena?

Francis, Fukuyama (1989) “The End of History?” The National Interest, Summer.

Huntington, Samuel P. (1993) “The Clash of Civilizations” Foreign Affairs, Summer, vol. 72, no. 3, pp. 22-49.

Week 2 (Sept 3): Ethnicity and Ethnic Politics

Comparing essentialist and constructivist approaches to ethnic identity.

Eriksen, Thomas H. (1993) Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives (London:

Pluto Press) Selected Chapters.

Hutchinson, J. & Anthony D. Smith (1996) Ethnicity (Oxford: Oxford University Press) Selected Readings.

Case Study: The Basques in Spain

Beramendi, Justo G. (2000) “Identity, Ethnicity and State in Spain: 19th and 20th Centuries”

in Safran, W. and Ramon Maiz (eds.) Identity and Territorial Autonomy in Plural Societies (Frank Cass Publishers: London) pp. 79-100.

Week 3 (Sept 8, 10): Nation and Nationalism

What are the links between ethnicity, nation, and nationalism?

Anderson, B. (1983) Imagined Communities: Reflection on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso) Selected chapters.

Hutchinson, J. & Anthony D. Smith (1994) Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press) Selected articles.

Kellas, James G. (1991) “The Evolution of Nationalisms: theories” pp. 34-50 and “Nationalism in the ‘First World’” pp. 86-105 in The Politics of Nationalism and Ethnicity (St. Martin’s Press: New York).

Week 4 (Sept 15, 17): Religion, Ethnicity, and Nation

What are the relations between public religion and ethnic and national identity?

Casanova, Jose (1994) Public Religion in the Modern World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press) Selected chapters.

Hutchinson, J. & Anthony D. Smith (1994) Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press) Selected articles.

Rex, John (1996) “Religion in the Theory of Ethnicity” in Ethnic Minorities in the Modern Nation State (Macmillan: London) pp. 200-215.

Case Study: Northern Ireland

Mitchell, Claire (2005) “Behind the Ethnic Marker: Religion and Social Identification in Northern Ireland” in Sociology of Religion, 66:1 pp. 3-21.

Week 5 (Sept 22, 24): Ethno-religious Conflict: Case of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Ignatieff, Michael (1993) “Croatia and Serbia” in Blood and Belonging (New York: Noonday Press) pp. 19-56.

Bringa, Tone (1995) Being Muslim the Bosnian Way: Identity and Community in a Central Bosnian Village (Princeton: Princeton University Press) Selected chapters.

Case Study: The Bosnian War

Midterm Exam I

Week 6 (Sept 29, Oct 1): Multiculturalism: Collectivity vs. Individual

What are the advantages and limitations of multicultural state policies? What are the dilemmas of multicultural policies in balancing community and individual rights?

Kymlicka, Will (1995) Multicultural citizenship (Oxford: Clarendon Press) Selected Chapters. Rex, John (1996) “Transnational Migrant Communities and Ethnic Minorities in Modern

Multicultural Societies” in Ethnic minorities in the modern nation state (Macmillan: London) pp. 96-113.

Case Study: The Story of Nadia

Wikan, Uni (2000) “Citizenship on Trial” Daedalus, Volume 29, no. 4, pp. 55-76.

Part II: Islam in Europe

Week 7 (Oct 6, 8): What is Islam? Who are the Muslims?

Introduction to central beliefs and rituals in Islam including an overview of sacred texts (Quran and Hadith) and personae (Prophets and Caliphs). We will also overview major developments in the history of Muslim societies.

Anne Maria Schimmel (1992) Islam: An Introduction (New York: SUNY Press)

Week 8 (Oct 13, 15): Islam in European Public Life

What are the major Islamic organizations in Europe? What are their religious interpretations on gender roles, secularism, democracy, and human rights?

Cesari, Jocelyne (2004) When Islam and Democracy Meet (New York: Palgrave

MacMillan) Selected Chapters.

Hunter, S. (ed.) (2002) Islam, Europe’s Second Religion (London: Praeger) Selected Chapters.

Case Study: Headscarf ban

Week 9 (Oct 20, 22): European State Policies and Muslims

How do the various integration policies of European countries affect Muslims? How do State-Church relations in Europe and the United States impact Muslim integration? What have been the changes in policy after September 11, 2001?

Fetzer, Joel S. and J. Christopher Soper (2005) Muslims and the State in Britain, France, and Germany (New York: Cambridge University Press) Selected Chapters.

Case Study: Riots in France

Week 10 (Oct 27, 29): Islam and European Collective Memory

What is the role of Islam in the emergence of European identity? What are the cultural interactions between Muslims and non-Muslims in European history?

Ballard, Roger (1996) “Islam and the Construction of Europe” in Shadid W.A.R. and P.S. Van

Koningsveld (eds.) Muslims in the Margin: Political Responses to the Presence of Islam in Western Europe (Kampen, The Netherlands: Pharos)

Film: When the Moors Ruled in Europe

Midterm Exam II

Week 11 (Nov 3, 5): Creolization: Euro-Islam or European Muslims?

How do Islam and Muslims adapt and/or resist to their European setting? What are the challenges in the development of local Islam in Europe?

Mandaville, Peter (2002) “Muslim Youth in Europe” in Hunter, T. Shireen (ed.) (2002) Islam, Europe’s Second Religion (Westport, CT: Praeger Publication).

Ramadan, T. (1999) To be a European Muslim (Leicester, UK: Islamic Foundation) Selected chapters.

Week 12 (Nov 10, 12): Globalization and Religious Violence

What is the impact of globalization on Muslims in general and Muslim minorities in the West in particular? What is the role of global community of Muslims (ummah) in Muslim politics? How do Muslims react to political developments in other parts of Muslim world? How is religious violence and globalization related?

Roy, Olivier (2004) Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (New York:

Columbia University Press) Chapters 4, 7, 8; pp. 148-197; 290-340.

Barber, Benjamin R. (1992) “Jihad vs. McWorld” in the Atlantic Monthly March, pp. 53-63.

Week 13 (Nov 17, 19): Multicultural Europe: Unity within Diversity?

What has been the impact of September 11 on Muslims in the West?

Asad, Talal (2003) “Muslims as a ‘Religious Minority’ in Europe” in Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, modernity (Stanford: Stanford University Press) pp. 159-180.

Francis, Fukuyama (2006) “Identity, Immigration, and Liberal Democracy” Journal of Democracy, April, pp. 5-20.

Week 14 (Dec 1, 3): Review

What are the dynamics of identity politics? What are the similarities and differences among the cases of ethno-religious identity politics? We will overview the main points of European identity politics.

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