This book explores the relationships of thirty young people with their ancestral homeland, of Pakistan or Kashmir, and with British urban life. It does so using narratives from young people about their journeys from Birmingham in Britain to visit kin in villages in rural Pakistan and Kashmir. Its particular usefulness is the critique that its empirical data raises of 'conventional wisdom' of some governments, media, academic theorists and public bodies about Muslim Minorities.

In the European discourse of post 9/11 reality, concepts such as "Multiculturalism," "Integration" and "European Islam" are becoming more and more topical. The empirically- based contributions in this volume aim to reflect the variety of current Muslim social practices and life-worlds in Germany. The volume goes beyond the fragmented methods of minority case studies and the monolithic view of Muslims as portrayed by mass media to present fresh theoretical approaches and in-depth analyses of a rich mosaic of communities, cultures and social practices. Issues of politics, religion, society,...

The book offers an ethnography of the Muslim minority in New Zealand with special emphasis on policy aspects relevant to the integration of Muslims in the host society. The book also discusses many other issues, such as Muslim political representation, inner coherence of the Muslim community, differentiated citizenship, gender issues and gender equality, and points of friction with the host society.

A major question regarding Islam in Europe concerns the religiosity of "Muslim youth" - a category currently epitomizing both the fears and hopes of multicultural Europe. How are Islamic traditions engaged and reworked by young people, born and educated in European societies, and which modes of religiosity will they shape in the future? Providing an in-depth ethnographic account from Norway, this book engages comparative research on Islam and young Muslims from across Europe, focusing on Islamic revitalization, Muslim identity politics, changing configurations of religious authority, and the...

In Muslim Tatar Minorities in the Baltic Sea Region, edited by Ingvar Svanberg and David Westerlund, the contributors introduce the history and contemporary situation of these little known groups of people that for centuries have been part of the religious and ethnic mosaic of this region. The book has a broad and multi-disciplinary scope and covers the early settlements in Lithuania and Poland, the later immigrations to Saint Petersburg, Finland, Estonia and Latvia, as well as the most recent establishments in Sweden and Germany. The authors, who hail from and are specialists on these...

In Organizing Muslims and Integrating Islam in Germany, Kerstin Rosenow-Williams analyzes the challenges faced by Islamic organizations in Germany since the beginning of the 21st century. Outlining the expectations German political actors have of Islamic organizations and the internal interests of these organizations, the author illustrates that organizational response strategies involve patterns not only of adaptation, but also of decoupling and protest. The study introduces an innovative research framework based on organizational sociology and provides empirical insights into three...

In The Minority Concept in the Turkish Context, Samim Akgonul presents a conceptual discussion of the term 'minority' from various perspectives, most notably history, sociology and political science. The concept of minority has a specific understanding in the Turkish political, sociological and legal context due to the Ottoman Millet system approach. The conceptual discussion is illustrated by three case studies: religious minorities in Turkey that are the result of the elimination policies during the Turkish nation building process, Muslim minorities in Greece as heritage of the...

This book investigates whether the presence of Muslim representatives in city councils improves substantive representation of Muslim interests across 32 London boroughs. It theorizes that descriptive representation of minorities leads to improved responsiveness to minority interests contingent on the percentage of minority representatives, the proportion of minorities in the district, level of party fragmentation among minority representatives, their political incorporation, and the electoral competitiveness of the district. It uses multivariate regression analysis to test the effects of...

Religion, Ethnicity and Transnational Migration between West Africa and Europe focuses on the West African migrants' presence in Europe and the way they negotiate religion and ethnicity in a new context. Special attention is given to the diversity of religious background of the migrants and to exploration of interreligious (especially Christian-Muslim) relations. These dimensions of transnational migration have not been widely researched, yet. After introducing the new African religious diaspora, the situation of the Senegalese, Ghanaian and Fulbe migrants - both Christian and Muslim -...

Muslims in Interwar Europe provides a comprehensive overview of the history of Muslims in interwar Europe. Based on personal and official archives, memoirs, press writings and correspondences, the contributors analyse the multiple aspects of the global Muslim religious, political and intellectual affiliations in interwar Europe. They argue that Muslims in interwar Europe were neither simply visitors nor colonial victims, but that they constituted a group of engaged actors in the European and international space. Contributors are Ali Al Tuma, Egdūnas Račius, Gerdien Jonker,...