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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - PrivatePieties (Private Pieties, Mundane Islam and New Forms of Muslim Religiosity: Impact on Contemporary Social and Political Dynamics)

Teaser

Summary

\"While \"\"Islam\"\" (Islamism, Islamic terrorism etc.) has drawn a lot of attention in Western media (and academe), the present research project (Private Pieties) focuses on Tunisians, Egyptians, Iranians etc. who are first of all \"\"citizens\"\" of their respective countries, and, amongst others, also (but only in secondary ways) \"\"Muslims\"\" (often not practicing Muslims), i.e. rather busy to survive everyday life. Religion for many Tunisians, Iranians etc. is thus not a major preoccupation, although many Tunisians, Iranians etc. would still say that they are \"\"pious\"\", yet pious in a very individual, private and personal way. The focus of the present research project is thus on these \"\"non-spectacular\"\" \"\"Muslim\"\" majorities that pose a major problem for Islamist movements, because they resist political and religious mobilization. As such, the present project is key to understand dynamics of religious, political and social development beyond the \"\"spectacular\"\". A proper understanding of processes of development of North African and Near Eastern countries is not possible without taking such \"\"non-spectacular\"\" dynamics of change into account.\"

Work performed

\"So far, our project (six members, working on Senegal, Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran and Pakistan) has conducted most of the field work as envisaged in the proposal, we have been meeting in weekly (Friday) laboratory meetings to discuss texts, to discuss with guests and to discuss our research, we have organized two major conferences on the theme of our proposal at the University of GÃ¶ttingen, and we have started to work on a first publication (an edited volume combining texts presented the 2018 conference in GÃ¶ttingen). Individual members are in the process of working on individual articles as well as monographs that are bound to be published in the next 2-3 years. A major result of our research, so far, is that we have been able to confirm our major working hypotheses as formulated in the proposal, yet, we have also modified our theoretical approach by not talking any more about \"\"private\"\" pieties but \"\"individual\"\" pieties. This change in approach is due to the fact that we have realized in the context of our individual research that social processes in our six case studies - despite vast differences between these countries - are characterized by processes of individualization that we have found everywhere and that are expressed in multiple ways.\"

Final results

\"As mentioned above, a major result of our research so far has been that we have been able to confirm vast differences between the six case studies of our project (Senegal, Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran and Pakistan). This has been expected, of course and confirms that it is simply not possible to talk about \"\"the Islamic world\"\". Second, we have been able to identify nevertheless a number of social processes common to all six case studies, in particular, processes of \"\"individualization\"\" that are expressed in political, social and religious terms. Such processes of individualization, identified most distinctively in \"\"middle class milieus\"\", have had a major impact on \"\"religion\"\", in particular \"\"political religion\"\", because religion (in particular radical expressions such as Islamism) has lost and is about to loose even more its role/function as a platform for political mobilization. By contrast, civilian movements, ie. social movements as well as social non-movements (i.e. not organized social movements) have gained considerable importance for the social, religious and polticial development in our six coutnries, most clearyl in Tunisia (as shown in the revolution of 2010/2011 and the democratic process since then). However, processes of civilian dissociation from organized (and political) religion have also been observed in Iran (very prominently), Pakistan, Lebanon, Egypt and Senegal. In the second part of our research we expect to confirm and to substantiate these preliminary results. Three additional conferences (and respective guests) will support our respective efforts.\"