The Republic Unsettled
eBook - PDF

The Republic Unsettled

Muslim French and the Contradictions of Secularism

  1. 326 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

The Republic Unsettled

Muslim French and the Contradictions of Secularism

About this book

In 1989 three Muslim schoolgirls from a Paris suburb refused to remove their Islamic headscarves in class. The headscarf crisis signaled an Islamic revival among the children of North African immigrants; it also ignited an ongoing debate about the place of Muslims within the secular nation-state. Based on ten years of ethnographic research, The Republic Unsettled alternates between an analysis of Muslim French religiosity and the contradictions of French secularism that this emergent religiosity precipitated. Mayanthi L. Fernando explores how Muslim French draw on both Islamic and secular-republican traditions to create novel modes of ethical and political life, reconfiguring those traditions to imagine a new future for France. She also examines how the political discourses, institutions, and laws that constitute French secularism regulate Islam, transforming the Islamic tradition and what it means to be Muslim. Fernando traces how long-standing tensions within secularism and republican citizenship are displaced onto France's Muslims, who, as a result, are rendered illegitimate as political citizens and moral subjects. She argues, ultimately, that the Muslim question is as much about secularism as it is about Islam.

Information

Publisher
Duke University Press Books
Year
2014
Print ISBN
9780822357483
9780822357346
eBook ISBN
9780822376286
Topic
Social Sciences
Subtopic
French History
Index
Social Sciences
266 
Epilogue
democratic 
state 
to 
the 
jealous 
guarding 
of 
its 
sovereignty, 
though 
he 
does 
not 
explicitly 
attribute 
the 
inclusivity 
of 
a 
democratic 
ethos 
to 
a 
very 
dif-
ferent 
attitude 
toward 
sovereignty. 
I 
want 
to 
suggest 
that 
there 
might 
be 
a 
link 
between 
the 
two. 
A 
notion 
of 
human 
nonsovereignty 
produces 
a 
cer-
tain 
epistemological 
and 
existential 
modesty, 
which 
in 
turn 
generates 
an 
attunement 
to 
and 
care 
for 
others 
without 
judgment, 
an 
attunement 
vital 
to 
a 
democratic 
ethos. 
What 
is 
particularly 
interesting 
about 
Nawel 
and 
the 
political 
and 
ethical 
position 
she 
invokes 
is 
that 
she 
is 
not 
an 
activist, 
un-
like 
Amira. 
Yet 
she, 
too, 
occupies 
a 
subjective 
orientation 
to 
the 
divine 
that 
opens 
up 
a 
set 
of 
political 
and 
ethical 
possibilities 
with 
regard 
to 
working 
with 
others, 
oïŹ…en 
thought 
to 
be 
foreclosed 
to 
deeply 
and 
publicly 
religious 
people. 
Although 
it 
remains 
problematic 
that 
justice-oriented 
responses 
oïŹ…en 
have 
to 
emerge 
from 
a 
place 
of 
injury—that 
it 
is 
Sébastien 
Nouchet’s 
immolation 
that 
evokes 
Amal’s 
care 
and 
concern—Suzanne’s 
recourse 
to 
an 
aïŹ€ective 
register 
and 
Nawel’s 
notion 
of 
nonsovereignty 
seem 
to 
oïŹ€er 
possible 
alternatives 
to 
secular 
tolerance. 
They 
enable 
not 
only 
an 
ethos 
but 
also 
a 
practice 
of 
critical 
responsiveness, 
agonistic 
respect, 
and 
democratic 
politics, 
a 
pluralism 
not 
only 
in 
theory 
but 
in 
practice.

Table of contents

  1. Contents
  2. Acknowledgments
  3. Introduction
  4. Field Notes I: “Vive la RĂ©publique Plurielle”
  5. One. “The Republic Is Mine”
  6. Two. Indifference, or the Right to Citizenship
  7. Field Notes II: Friday Prayers
  8. Three. “A Memorial to the Future”
  9. Four. Reconfiguring Freedom
  10. Field Notes III: A Tale of Two Manifestos
  11. Five. Of Mimicry and Woman
  12. Six. Asymmetries of Tolerance
  13. Epilogue
  14. Notes
  15. References
  16. Index

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