{"id":3320,"date":"2021-11-18T11:02:30","date_gmt":"2021-11-18T09:02:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/investigate-islam.com\/?p=3320"},"modified":"2021-11-18T11:02:30","modified_gmt":"2021-11-18T09:02:30","slug":"dentification-and-belonging-a-case-study-of-white-german-women-converts-to-islam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/investigate-islam.com\/web\/?p=3320","title":{"rendered":"dentification and Belonging: A Case Study of White German Women Converts to Islam"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Feminist Theology 2021, Vol. 30(1) 104 \u2013119\u00a9 The Author(s) 2021Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com\/journals-permissionsDOI: 10.1177\/09667350211031153<\/div>\n
https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/home\/fth<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
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Lana Sirri<\/div>\n
Maastricht University, The Netherlands<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Abstract<\/strong><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
This study explores the possibilities of identification and belonging in a socio-religious space that<\/div>\n
contains multiple communal boundaries. It is based on narrated accounts of White Christian<\/div>\n
German women living in Berlin, Germany, who have converted to Islam. Their shared cultural<\/div>\n
background with other White German women, their new Islamic religion, and, for some, their<\/div>\n
intermarriage affiliation with Muslims, position these women in a complex relation to the multiple<\/div>\n
communities within this space. This intersectional positioning opens up possibilities for constructing,<\/div>\n
negotiating and articulating religious, cultural, and gender identification and belonging. This study<\/div>\n
aims to investigate how these women construct notions of gender, Islam and Muslimness, and how<\/div>\n
they position themselves in relation to communal boundaries of identification and belonging. It<\/div>\n
also explores the sense they make of their positionings, and how these are expressed in their daily<\/div>\n
lives. To this end, the research describes their encounters in the spheres of the community and the<\/div>\n
family. The research aims to contribute to an enhanced understanding of gutes Leben, the human<\/div>\n
flourishing, of White German women who have converted to Islam.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
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Keywords<\/strong><\/div>\n
Identification, belonging, Islam, White, gender, intersectionality, conversion<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
Introduction<\/strong><\/div>\n
The spread of conversions to Islam, especially in Western countries, is a phenomenon of<\/div>\n
the late-twentieth century that continues its rapid growth into the present century, with<\/div>\n
women constituting the largest numbers of these new Muslims. Female conversions may<\/div>\n
raise strong reactions or objections because traditions often construct women as symbols<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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of ethnic and religious boundaries. Research interlinking gender and Islam has recognized<\/div>\n
the key role women play in the construction and the making of such communal bounda–<\/span><\/div>\n
ries. Roald (2006) argues that the function of women and their bodies in the marking of<\/div>\n
boundaries is particularly evident when dealing with Islam. Female converts to Islam<\/div>\n
have fiercer battles to fight because gender issues have been pivotal in the construction of<\/div>\n
Otherness between \u2018Islam\u2019 and the \u2018West\u2019 (Van Nieuwkerk, 2006). This has to be regarded<\/div>\n
in view of how Islam is portrayed as a \u2018religion hostile to women\u2019 within European media<\/div>\n
and discourse. It explains why, as Roald observed, new converts (men and women alike)<\/div>\n
tend to defend traditional Muslim gender systems. However, as these new Muslims go<\/div>\n
through the various stages of the conversion process, there is a tendency to incorporate<\/div>\n
\u2018Western\u2019 ideals on gender relations into the Islamic framework. Therefore, it is important<\/div>\n
to focus on the processes by which a new identity is created. This study sets out to explore<\/div>\n
possibilities of identification and belonging in a socio-religious space that contains multi–<\/span><\/div>\n
ple communal boundaries: White Christian German society and the Muslim community<\/div>\n
living in Germany. These boundaries of inclusion and exclusion define and indicate who<\/div>\n
can be, and how to be, a Christian or a Muslim, a German or Ausl\u00e4nder<\/span> (foreigner), in<\/div>\n
their different gendered, religious, national and ethnic constitutions.<\/div>\n
Despite many unfavourable conditions, ethnic Germans are steadily embracing Islam<\/div>\n
by reciting the Islamic creed in the presence of at least two witnesses, declaring their<\/div>\n
belief that \u2018there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah\u2019. Because<\/div>\n
this conversion process is so simple and requires no registration, there is no reliable fig-<\/div>\n
ure regarding the actual number of new German Muslims. Estimates range from 20,000<\/div>\n
to 100,000 (\u00d6zy\u00fcrek, 2010).<\/div>\n
When White German women convert to Islam, they enter a new and unfamiliar public<\/div>\n
space \u2013 the Muslim community \u2013 within their own society. Moreover, they enter a new<\/div>\n
space without leaving their old space \u2013 their country, family, work places and so on \u2013 and<\/div>\n
now must straddle the two while adjusting to life inside the new space (Badran, 2006).<\/div>\n
German converts to Islam find themselves in ambilvalent relations with immigrant<\/div>\n
Muslims (\u00d6zy\u00fcrek, 2010). Studies on conversion to Islam in the Christian-majority soci-<\/div>\n
eties of Europe and North America highlight the fact that<\/div>\n
These converts choose to embrace a minority religion in contexts where Islam and Muslims are<\/div>\n
feared, hated, discriminated against, marginalized, and forced to assimilate. Converting to any<\/div>\n
minority religion is a difficult process. Converts coming to the minority religion from the<\/div>\n
majority religion typically face exclusion from their earlier group affiliations, suspicion from<\/div>\n
both the majority and the minority group, and new kinds of discrimination of which they were<\/div>\n
previously unaware. But when ethnic Europeans convert to Islam, the stakes are even higher,<\/div>\n
because Islam is a persistently and negatively othered religion. The discrimination to which<\/div>\n
converts are subject often comes as a surprise to them. (\u00d6zy\u00fcrek, 2010: 173)<\/div>\n
The point of departure for this research is the narrated accounts of the everyday lives<\/div>\n
of White Christian German women living in Berlin who have converted to Islam. These<\/div>\n
accounts highlight the dichotomy of religious\/secular, East\/West, and Islam\/secularity as<\/div>\n
these subjects are positioned in the middle of society: between converted Muslims and<\/div>\n
born Muslims on one hand, and between German society and converted Muslims on the<\/div>\n
other hand. The research encompasses both women who converted before marriage and<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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106 Feminist Theology 30(1)<\/span><\/div>\n
women who converted after marrying Muslim men. Hence, it presents cases of intermar-<\/div>\n
riage. Defined as marriage among members of different groups, intermarriage has long<\/div>\n
been used as a means of studying dynamics of ethnicity, nationality, religion and other<\/div>\n
group factors (Price and Zubrzycki, 1962). The intersectional positioning embedded in<\/div>\n
intermarriage generates exposure to different and often contradictory discursive systems<\/div>\n
and subject-making processes. It is a dichotomy we are well aware of: East\/West, reli-<\/div>\n
gious\/secular, and so on. But, for these women, there is another dichotomy at work \u2013 that<\/div>\n
between born Muslims and convert Muslims.<\/div>\n
This is not to imply that any discourse is fully coherent or free of contradiction.<\/div>\n
Rather, it is the assumption of this research that such intersectional positionings open up<\/div>\n
possibilities for constructing, negotiating and articulating religious, cultural and gender<\/div>\n
identifications and belongings that cannot be easily predicted, defined and constrained<\/div>\n
(Bell, 1999; McCall, 2005). Therefore, these positions can potentially challenge, as well<\/div>\n
as reaffirm, the communal boundaries in the Christian German space. Furthermore, the<\/div>\n
idea that the German women who were interviewed crossed from a Western secular soci-<\/div>\n
ety into a religious one is a false presumption.<\/div>\n
The focus on religion, in general, in this work emphasizes Wohlrab-Sahr\u2019s (1999)<\/div>\n
claim that religion is a means for the public dramatization of problems of social disinte-<\/div>\n
gration and distinction, but it also functions as a means of individual problem-solving,<\/div>\n
because it re-evaluates the former weak points in the individual biography and replaces<\/div>\n
old relations with a new and absolute commitment. The focus on Islam, for White<\/div>\n
Christian German women who converted to Islam in particular, is meant<\/div>\n
to work out more carefully the implications of \u2018German Muslims\u2019, because this touches upon a<\/div>\n
broader issue that concerns the normative dimensions involved in the processes of<\/div>\n
institutionalizing Islam according to pre-formatted standards of Germanness or Europeanness,<\/div>\n
as also apparent in the flourishing notion of a Euro-Islam. (Amir-Moazami, 2011: 12)<\/div>\n
In this research, I investigate how these women position themselves in relation to two<\/div>\n
different communities: on one hand, the hegemonial White Christian German society;<\/div>\n
and on the other hand, the minority Muslim community within that society. I argue that<\/div>\n
their identification may rest on locations that are perhaps constructed as contradicting,<\/div>\n
which in turn, affect the ways they negotiate their own identities and articulate their<\/div>\n
sense of belonging. To be able to comprehend these positionings, one must understand<\/div>\n
(a) how do women construct notions of gender and Islam (and Muslimness)? (b) which<\/div>\n
meanings do they attribute to their own structural positionings within them? and (c) how<\/div>\n
do they position themselves in relation to communal boundaries of identification and<\/div>\n
belonging in the context of cultural conflict between Islam and Germany?<\/div>\n
It is perhaps evident from these questions that the purpose of this study is not to draw<\/div>\n
an ethnographic portrait of convert women living in Berlin or to reveal a particular truth<\/div>\n
about their identities. It is rather to learn how meanings are produced and identities are<\/div>\n
negotiated in a particular cultural and religious space. What emerges here is a certain<\/div>\n
assumption of the irreducibility of lived experiences and their potential to challenge and<\/div>\n
advance theoretical and political thought. Therefore, the narrated accounts of the inter-<\/div>\n
viewees and their everyday lives become a concrete example, constituting \u2018the place<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
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Sirri 107<\/span><\/div>\n
1. The names of interviewees have been changed in an effort to protect their privacy while<\/div>\n
attempting to maintain the type and origin of the name.<\/div>\n
where thought happens, where theoretical questions can be raised, elaborated, and<\/div>\n
answered\u2019 (Moi, 1999: 302). This is not to imply an instrumental use of people in the<\/div>\n
service of theoretical explorations, but rather to suggest a commitment to a theoretical<\/div>\n
contribution that is capable of acknowledging these lived experiences and learning from<\/div>\n
them (Moraga and Anzald\u00faa, 1981).<\/div>\n
Methodology<\/div>\n
This study takes as its key method in-depth interviews, each approximately 90 minutes<\/div>\n
long, with five White German women1<\/span> living in Berlin, Germany, who converted from<\/div>\n
Christianity to Islam. The advantages of this methodology relate to classical symbolic<\/div>\n
anthropology and narratology, as it allows for a window to be opened into the worlds of<\/div>\n
the interviewees and an in-depth understanding to be developed of lived realities and the<\/div>\n
nuances of everyday life. Hence, this was an optimal methodology for the purpose of this<\/div>\n
research. It has facilitated a learning process on religious interpretation, negotiation, and<\/div>\n
the articulation of identifications and belongings, in concrete contexts of the everyday<\/div>\n
lives of the interviewees. On one hand, this method helps to involve the interviewees in<\/div>\n
the dynamics of their own narration and reinvolve them, to a certain degree, in the<\/div>\n
dynamics of their past experiences through the process of recapitulation (Sch\u00fctze, 1983).<\/div>\n
On the other hand, conversion narratives must be looked at as social scripts that are<\/div>\n
highly influenced by the speaker\u2019s desire to be seen as a true convert (Snow and<\/div>\n
Machalek, 1984; Taylor, 1976), as well as by the changing ideologies of religious groups<\/div>\n
(Beckford, 1978). The principal disadvantage was the limitation of the research to a cer-<\/div>\n
tain point in time, thereby preventing the ability to trace developments and changes in<\/div>\n
the lives of the interviewees and their processes of identification and belonging before,<\/div>\n
during and after conversion. Thus, the time perspective of the in-depth interviews is<\/div>\n
limited to the retrospectives of the interviewees themselves.<\/div>\n
For this study, I interviewed five German women who had converted to Islam. They<\/div>\n
all come from ethnically White Christian families with different degrees of practising<\/div>\n
religion. What connects these women is a lack of something in life that they could not<\/div>\n
find in Christianity. The rationale behind my reference to the interviewees as belonging<\/div>\n
to a same category of \u2018converts\u2019 lies in their affiliation to this community. Communities<\/div>\n
of converts in Europe are developing on local levels. The emergence of these communi-<\/div>\n
ties is visible both in the accounts of the interviewees, and in German-language online<\/div>\n
Internet communities, such as islamweb.net.<\/div>\n
The structure of this article runs on two axes: the construction and production of mean–<\/span><\/div>\n
ing and its structural position, mediated by agency. I examine the meanings the women<\/div>\n
attribute to their new Islamic religion and how they position themselves in relation to com–<\/span><\/div>\n
munal boundaries of identity, identification and belonging, and the sense they make of<\/div>\n
these in different social and cultural contexts. Finally, I investigate how these women reach<\/div>\n
their gutes Leben (human flourishing) within their conflicting and complex realities.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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108 Feminist Theology 30(1)<\/span><\/div>\n
Theoretical Framework<\/div>\n
Conversion as Subjectification<\/div>\n
Life engages people in a continuous movement through social and cultural groups and<\/div>\n
communities, be it a school class or a sports club, a new neighbourhood, or even a new<\/div>\n
country. Each community carries particular sets of values, laws, rules and norms of<\/div>\n
behaviour, drawing its own territorial and\/or social-cultural boundaries and dictating<\/div>\n
who can and cannot participate and belong (Bell, 1999; Eckert and McConnell-Ginet,<\/div>\n
1995). Different religious and social forms of communal life require particular atten–<\/span><\/div>\n
tion and call for a separate discussion: the family, the township, the online community,<\/div>\n
the nation state and the transnational world. Each form entails its own world of cultural<\/div>\n
meanings, power or knowledge systems, scholarship and theoretical frameworks cre–<\/span><\/div>\n
ated in the course of their analysis. The overlaps and intersections between these forms<\/div>\n
in themselves constitute a focus of contemporary social and cultural research, which<\/div>\n
explores the multiple relations between the family and the nation state; the subcultural<\/div>\n
groups and transnational technologies of communication; rural communities; and<\/div>\n
transnational economic institutions. Participation in these multiple contexts can be<\/div>\n
complicated and contradictory: values of the family may contradict the laws and rules<\/div>\n
of the new religion, while the practices of the community or the subculture may under–<\/span><\/div>\n
mine the norms of society at large. The family itself is likely to experience internal<\/div>\n
struggles or tensions with values and norms, as is the community and the nation state.<\/div>\n
In this context, boundaries of religion and identity serve a dual role of inclusion and<\/div>\n
exclusion: factors and practices of participating and belonging in one collective may<\/div>\n
signify strangeness and exclusion from the other. The regulative task of reproducing<\/div>\n
and redrawing these boundaries may take different forms on the complex axis of the<\/div>\n
forced and voluntary, and may involve different sanctions for violation and noncompli–<\/span><\/div>\n
ance. Newcomers actively engage in this process and may respond to it by cooperation<\/div>\n
and complicity, resistance or subversion. To grasp the multifaceted nature of these<\/div>\n
relations, Ong (1996) turns to Foucault and explains the term subjectification as \u2018self-<\/div>\n
making and being made by power relations that produce consent through schemes of<\/div>\n
surveillance, discipline, control and administration\u2019 (p. 737). Conversion involves<\/div>\n
intensive processes of subjectification and remaking of the self. As such, it profoundly<\/div>\n
transforms the everyday life experience of the subject \u2013 from learning a new language<\/div>\n
and encountering new cultures to becoming subjected to a new religious system that<\/div>\n
one may not have encountered before.<\/div>\n
Rather than simply understanding identification as something that has already taken<\/div>\n
place in the formation of subjectivity, we can consider how identifications perpetually<\/div>\n
fail to grasp \u2018others\u2019 in social encounters. That is, subjects assume images that they can–<\/span><\/div>\n
not fully be, but the images they assume are already differentiated<\/span>; subjects and others<\/div>\n
become differentiated at the very same moment that they are constituted as such<\/div>\n
(Ahmed, 2000).<\/div>\n
Conversion involves a powerful experience of strangeness, whereupon the convert<\/div>\n
subject is reconstituted as a stranger. Badran (2006) asserts that<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Sirri 109<\/span><\/div>\n
2. The term \u2018Muslima\u2019 refers to the female Muslim person \u2013 the one who submits to God and<\/div>\n
positions herself as a believing and practicing Muslim. I apply Lamptey\u2019s (2014: 8) defini-<\/div>\n
tion of the term that includes the Muslima\u2019s individual experience as a woman, not only as an<\/div>\n
experiential positioning but also theoretically.<\/div>\n
native-European or Western converts are also foreignized to a degree by their conversion to<\/div>\n
Islam. It is important to bear in mind, then, that the terms Muslim and Muslima2<\/span> are thus not <\/span><\/div>\n
simply religious markers but mark the foreign in countries of the West. (p. 199)<\/div>\n
Therefore, one must not overlook the context of the religious and cultural forms of sub-<\/div>\n
jectification in which the convert comes into being. Indeed, taking the temporal per-<\/div>\n
formative nature of identities as a theoretical premise means that, more than ever, one<\/div>\n
needs to question how identities continue to be produced, embodied and performed<\/div>\n
effectively, passionately, and with social and political consequences (Bell, 1999).<\/div>\n
The process of subjectification for \u2018German Muslims\u2019 in Germany, a religio-social<\/div>\n
space of intricate boundaries of identity, can be understood as the making and remaking of<\/div>\n
self in direct relation to the subject positions of this religio-social entity, or these entities, in<\/div>\n
their political, social, cultural and other formations. The theoretical work on religion mak–<\/span><\/div>\n
ing and politics of identity emphasizes the production of German and Muslim identities as<\/div>\n
mutually exclusive and the questions of identification and belonging for \u2018German Muslims\u2019<\/div>\n
in Germany in light of the intimate connection between identification and conversion.<\/div>\n
Religion Making and Politics of Identity<\/div>\n
\u2018Religion making\u2019 is broadly conceived as the way in which certain social phenomena are<\/div>\n
configured and reconfigured within the matrix of a world religion, or world religions, dis–<\/span><\/div>\n
course. The notion refers to the reification and institutionalization of certain ideas, social<\/div>\n
formations and practices as \u2018religious\u2019 in the conventional Western meaning of the term,<\/div>\n
thereby subordinating them to a particular knowledge regime of religion and its political,<\/div>\n
cultural, philosophical and historical interventions. In some localities, being religious, or<\/div>\n
practising or engaging in what has been deemed \u2018religious\u2019, as Masuzawa (2005) has put it<\/div>\n
more concretely, may be related to the question of personal and group identity in a way<\/div>\n
altogether different from the one usually assumed (i.e. assumed on the basis of the Western<\/div>\n
European denominational history of recent centuries). For that matter, religion and identity<\/div>\n
may not relate at all in some cases. Masuzawa (2005) stresses the fact that<\/div>\n
The so-called great religions of the world are often arranged by means of one or the other of<\/div>\n
various systems of classification, with binary, tripartite, or even more multifarious divisions.<\/div>\n
What these systems do, regardless of the variation, is to distinguish the West from the rest, even<\/div>\n
though the distinction is usually effected in more complicated ways than the still frequently<\/div>\n
used, easy language of \u2018East and West\u2019 suggests. The demarcation, in any event, is articulated<\/div>\n
from the point of view of the European West, which is in all known cases historically aligned<\/div>\n
or conflated. Though not without some ambiguity, with Christendom. (p. 3)<\/div>\n
In \u2018The Age of the World Picture\u2019, Heidegger notes that, through this mode of self-<\/div>\n
relation, man places imagination at the centre of the world. What Heidegger alludes to is<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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110 Feminist Theology 30(1)<\/span><\/div>\n
that this particular modern form of thinking gradually produces the birth of the West as a<\/div>\n
self-referential system of thought, universalizing its position and discourse, while claim-<\/div>\n
ing objectivity about human societies and cultures on the same basis as the natural sci-<\/div>\n
ences. Through the work of this imaginary, which projects itself as a universal structure<\/div>\n
of human consciousness \u2013 the self-representing subject \u2013 not only does Europe become<\/div>\n
the West and thought Western. In the very same process, \u2018religion becomes secularity\u2019<\/div>\n
(Dressler and Mandair, 2011). Jakobsen and Pellegrini (2008) claim that \u2018the choice<\/div>\n
between secularism and religion represents a false dichotomy. This is so because reli-<\/div>\n
gious and secular formations are profoundly intertwined with each other\u2019 (p. 11).<\/div>\n
The political reality forces us, paraphrasing Talal Asad (1993), to think about the<\/div>\n
conditions in which the dichotomies between \u2018the religious\u2019 and \u2018the secular\u2019 seem to<\/div>\n
make sense in so many public discourses. Such inquiry needs to ask questions about<\/div>\n
political and epistemological hegemony: \u2018How, when, and by whom are the categories of<\/div>\n
religion and the secular defined? What assumptions are presupposed in the acts that<\/div>\n
define them?\u2019 (Dressler and Mandair, 2011: 20). As a result, the easy presumption that<\/div>\n
secularism is necessarily more rational, more modern, freer and less dangerous than<\/div>\n
religion is not sustainable.<\/div>\n
Eagleton (1989) argues that<\/div>\n
[a]ny body of theory concerned with human meaning, value, language, feeling, and experience<\/div>\n
will inevitably engage with broader, deeper beliefs about the nature of human individuals, and<\/div>\n
societies, problems of power and sexuality, interpretations of past history, versions of the<\/div>\n
present, and hopes for the future. (p. 15, cited in McCutcheon, 1997: 195)<\/div>\n
The study of religion constitutes one such body of historically grounded theory<\/div>\n
(McCutcheon, 1997).<\/div>\n
In her work, Auga (2013) claims that \u2018[d]ebates in anthropology and other disciplines<\/div>\n
illustrate how a normative connection is made between secularity and an enlightenment<\/div>\n
narrative of progressive modernity that is said to promise reason, freedom, peace, and<\/div>\n
progress-a narrative one can then define as secularism<\/span>\u2019 (p. 277). Jakobsen and Pellegrini<\/div>\n
(2008) characterize secularism as \u2018a political project that deploys the concept of the secu-<\/div>\n
lar, and it may do so regardless of the empirical state of secularization\u2019. Understood this<\/div>\n
way, secularity is then viewed as the answer to violence motivated by religion or other-<\/div>\n
wise mobilized in response to political Islam. Yet, the implicit set of values underlying<\/div>\n
this narrative also betrays its problematic side: deploying circular logic, secularism relies<\/div>\n
on a range of dichotomies that confirm each other and identify it with progressivism,<\/div>\n
universalism, rationality and freedom, whereas religion is associated with regression,<\/div>\n
particularism, irrationality and bondage.<\/div>\n
Therefore, the idea that the German women who were interviewed crossed from<\/div>\n
Western secular society into a religious one is a false presumption. If women\u2019s conver-<\/div>\n
sions are understood as a shift from secular to religious, one will misunderstand and<\/div>\n
misinterpret their construction of religion. The narrated accounts of White German<\/div>\n
women who have converted to Islam highlight this dichotomy of religious\/secular, East\/<\/div>\n
West and Islam\/secularity as subjects positioned in the middle of society: between con-<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Sirri 111<\/span><\/div>\n
verted Muslims and born Muslims on one hand, and between German society and con-<\/div>\n
verted Muslims on the other hand.<\/div>\n
The Construction of Gender<\/div>\n
In her work on the journey of American women converts to Islam, Yazbeck-Haddad<\/div>\n
(2006) found that many appear to welcome the concept of distinct responsibilities<\/div>\n
and duties within male\/female relationships as expressed within Islam. Her inter–<\/span><\/div>\n
viewees commented on the importance of the fact that the equality granted to men<\/div>\n
and women in the Qur\u2019an provided different roles and functions for each gender. In<\/div>\n
my research, two of the interviewees indeed supported the idea of distinct responsi–<\/span><\/div>\n
bilities and duties:<\/div>\n
The good thing in Tunisia was that, when I was there, I had the feeling, I thought: \u2018Hey, the<\/div>\n
roles are clearly distributed and the women are happier\u2019. In my opinion, because they know<\/div>\n
exactly that the man takes care and earns money, and the women know they just have to do the<\/div>\n
household and children and that\u2019s it. So, here [in Germany], it is always: \u2018Yes, I do this and this<\/div>\n
and this\u2019 and finally the engaged, emancipated women says: \u2018I go study, I work, and then have<\/div>\n
2\u20133 children\u2019. But they still take care of the household, they still take care of the man, they go<\/div>\n
shopping, do the laundry anyway. Yes, why? Just so I can show I can do more? Then I can be<\/div>\n
more satisfied and say, ok, the man is there for him to work, I have enough time for the<\/div>\n
household. Totally ok. (Hannah)<\/div>\n
Similarly to Hannah, Arianne supports the distinct gender roles as well, and she goes<\/div>\n
even further to claim that this orientation towards the family and the responsibilities the<\/div>\n
husband is expected to take on is what impelled her to choose a Muslim spouse:<\/div>\n
The man provides for the family, works, and so on. I would like to stay home with the children.<\/div>\n
. . . but with multiple wives, this I cannot understand. Why can a man have a few wives and the<\/div>\n
woman cannot? I understand that this has a reason, for providing and taking care of women. But<\/div>\n
I don\u2019t want that for myself. I want to be alone with my husband. I cannot imagine my husband<\/div>\n
having another wife. (Arianne)<\/div>\n
As a Muslima, Arianne wants to marry a Muslim man and raise her children as<\/div>\n
Muslims, identifying herself and constructing her family as Muslim. Despite her embrac-<\/div>\n
ing these distinct gender roles, at the same time, as a German, she cannot imagine sharing<\/div>\n
her husband with other wives.<\/div>\n
Based on Hannah\u2019s and Arianne\u2019s accounts of the construction of gender and gender<\/div>\n
roles, it is evident that they are comfortable in the traditional roles of wife and mother<\/div>\n
and uncomfortable when it comes to trying to emulate men. Their perception of gender<\/div>\n
roles in Arab\u2013Muslim societies cannot be detached from the Western Oriental and colo-<\/div>\n
nial gendered imagery. Reading the interviews, one can easily identify quite \u2018classical\u2019<\/div>\n
stereotypes possibly rooted in these and other ideological systems of representation. Yet,<\/div>\n
the purpose here is not to spot preexisting stereotypes of Muslims that are either embraced<\/div>\n
or rejected by the interviewees, but rather to understand the utilization of the category in<\/div>\n
the construction of their own identities.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
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112 Feminist Theology 30(1)<\/span><\/div>\n
3. A generic definition of the family cannot be applicable to all cultures and the diverse social<\/div>\n
structures they encompass. There are differences in its meanings and implications, intersect-<\/div>\n
ing with other key conditions, such as class, socio-economic status, nationality, ethnicity and<\/div>\n
religion. These differences constitute, and are constituted through, different sets of gender<\/div>\n
relations, and prescribe a different political economy of the family.<\/div>\n
Other interviewees criticize these (often imagined) gender roles and the position of<\/div>\n
women in Muslim societies. Aziza\u2019s account can be read as a criticism of the (imagined)<\/div>\n
position of Muslim women:<\/div>\n
I think Allah did not create us only to have children and be housewives, I do not think so,<\/div>\n
because there are also many examples in Muslim history where women were scholars and, yes,<\/div>\n
were active. So I think you can combine both well.<\/div>\n
Aziza utilizes her new religion of Islam to construct her own gendered identity:<\/div>\n
One has children, one becomes a mother, one stays at home, one makes the household, that\u2019s it.<\/div>\n
I think that\u2019s the ideal family for many Muslims. But I think it\u2019s boring, I did not study for that,<\/div>\n
I would like to do my doctorate as well, Inshalla<\/span>. So, I just want to do my PhD, because I think<\/div>\n
there are other things that we, as women, have fought for. So, we should go out and tell people<\/div>\n
what Islam is and what we should do with prejudices so we won\u2019t be further discriminated<\/div>\n
against and so on.<\/div>\n
Furthermore, Aziza relates to this process as integral to her subjectivity, the funda-<\/div>\n
mental essence of being a human being:<\/div>\n
Allah did not create us just to have children. I can be a wife, a scientist, and a mother, all at the<\/div>\n
same time . . . so I can be everything. A Christian nun cannot do that, I feel sorry for her. What\u2019s<\/div>\n
beautiful in Islam for me is that it encloses everything, so I can do everything, I can be<\/div>\n
everything. In the frame of what\u2019s allowed, yes.<\/div>\n
Aziza\u2019s narration demonstrates the interlink and interdependence between the construc-<\/div>\n
tion of gender and of religion. It is through an understanding of \u2018Islam\u2019 that Aziza is able<\/div>\n
to construct her gender identity.<\/div>\n
Psychoanalytical and feminist traditions also draw our attention to the private sphere,<\/div>\n
and the family3<\/span> specifically, as an imperative site where gendered identities and gender<\/div>\n
dynamics are formed, negotiated and transformed. Take, for example, Arianne\u2019s sugges-<\/div>\n
tion that it is the \u2018orientation towards the family\u2019 and the responsibilities the husband is<\/div>\n
expected to take on that convinced her and many others to choose a Muslim spouse:<\/div>\n
Lina relates to social conditions and positions within the structures of family and community:<\/div>\n
It\u2019s funny because I see that [born Muslim] women work a lot, for example, and are very strong,<\/div>\n
but that they still accept conservative gender constructs. They say \u2018It\u2019s so beautiful in Islam,<\/div>\n
women don\u2019t have to work\u2019, but they do. I often have the feeling that women who find the<\/div>\n
Islamic ideals very nice are not women who are sitting at home and are quiet but are women<\/div>\n
who fight.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
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Sirri 113<\/span><\/div>\n
The Orientalist imagination, and perhaps fantasy, does not escape convert women.<\/div>\n
For them, there is an a priori structured way of being a Muslim woman. Gender roles are<\/div>\n
supposedly clearly defined, which facilitate, in their opinion, better gender relations. In<\/div>\n
a way, Islam, or, more precisely, the imagined gender roles and gender relations in this<\/div>\n
newly adopted religion, is used as a mechanism to lead a better life. Other interviewees<\/div>\n
who do not agree nor accept these gender roles use \u2018Islam\u2019 to promote gender rights and<\/div>\n
equality. For them, the interdependence between the categories \u2018Islam\u2019 and \u2018gender\u2019<\/div>\n
becomes more concrete.<\/div>\n
The Construction of Islam and Muslim(ness)<\/div>\n
The constant comparison between \u2018German\u2019 families and \u2018Muslim\u2019 families is prominent<\/div>\n
in the narrations of all interviewees. These comparisons maintain and reproduce the con-<\/div>\n
struction of Islam\/Muslimness and Germanness as two distinct groupings. Lina\u2019s inner<\/div>\n
conflict exposes a process of reproducing Muslim and German identities as essentially<\/div>\n
conflicting and mutually exclusive. These identities were incapable of co-dwelling. This<\/div>\n
is why she concealed her conversion from her family. Other narrations exemplify similar<\/div>\n
constructs of \u2018us\u2019 versus \u2018them\u2019:<\/div>\n
I saw that they [the Muslim families] are totally different. At our place, we never had \u2018Ausl\u00e4nder<\/span>\u2019 <\/span><\/div>\n
[foreigners; a term used to describe Muslims and other non-white people living in Germany]<\/div>\n
and in Berlin there are many. I thought: They have a strong family, and their youth are strong.<\/div>\n
With German families who are really good, they also have strong youth, but there aren\u2019t many.<\/div>\n
But with Muslims, even when the family is not perfect, they are happy people. (Huda)<\/div>\n
Hannah expressed a similar sentiment:<\/div>\n
The Muslims are very friendly, so they do not say \u2018Here is my religion, either you take it now<\/div>\n
or bye\u2019, but always leave a door open and say \u2018You are always welcome. You come to me\u2019. This<\/div>\n
gives you the feeling you want to go to them. They give a warm welcome. Many people<\/div>\n
[referring to Germans] have only love for their family, and for theirs friends but they do not<\/div>\n
have so much power to give away. And with the Muslims I saw they give away as a present so<\/div>\n
much power, and they don\u2019t lack in power. They could be nice to someone a thousand times.<\/div>\n
All the women identified themselves as being both German and Muslims, but with<\/div>\n
different understandings of how these two identities are intertwined. For example, Lina<\/div>\n
explains to her German friends, who treat her differently now she has converted, that \u2018I<\/div>\n
am the way you knew me before and also totally different\u2019. On one hand, her new reli-<\/div>\n
gion did not change her and she remains the same, but, on the other hand, she is totally<\/div>\n
different from who she used to be. She is \u2018German\u2019, just as she was prior the conversion,<\/div>\n
and she is \u2018German Muslim\u2019, a new identity that is different from being \u2018German\u2019.<\/div>\n
For Hannah, conversion to Islam does not mean a drastic shift in her life, as religion<\/div>\n
is not \u2018the epicentre\u2019 of her life. As she puts it, \u2018I am a German who has found her faith\u2019.<\/div>\n
Arianne, however, struggles with finding a partner who could see her as both Muslim and<\/div>\n
German. She says, \u2018I wish someone would be interested in me because I am Muslim and<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
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114 Feminist Theology 30(1)<\/span><\/div>\n
German\u2019. In Arianne\u2019s case, it seems that her identity is constructed through acknowl-<\/div>\n
edgement from others.<\/div>\n
The construct of Germanness and Muslimness as two distinct identities is mostly<\/div>\n
obvious in Aziza\u2019s narration, as she takes on the role of an intermediary:<\/div>\n
I see myself as a mediator, as a cultural mediator, as an enlightener, so that I tell people, this is<\/div>\n
Islam. I see myself not only as a Muslim but I\u2019m also German, I\u2019m German Muslim and I still<\/div>\n
belong, I\u2019m still German. I can not give up my German identity. I still understand the same<\/div>\n
humour, the same jokes, and I understand, I know, how to use the language. Of course, there are<\/div>\n
certain limits that you have to adhere to because of religion, but it\u2019s still the case that I do not<\/div>\n
see that as an obstacle to getting involved in Germany.<\/div>\n
Seeing oneself as \u2018mediator\u2019 already assumes a division, a distinction between the two<\/div>\n
parties one aims to mediate. In this example, Aziza \u2018already\u2019 has her identity as a German,<\/div>\n
and the identity she took on as a Muslima. As such, she operates in a specific way within<\/div>\n
an encounter. When she is looked at in a weird way by \u2018Germans\u2019, she makes sure to<\/div>\n
smile and be nice. In this way, she invites them to ask more questions about her religion.<\/div>\n
She has something that \u2018Muslims\u2019 do not have; she understands the humour and the jokes<\/div>\n
that an \u2018outsider\u2019 will not. This statement reaffirms Ahmed\u2019s (1999) claim that \u2018what one<\/div>\n
sees as the other (or in oneself, as one passes for the other) is already structured by the<\/div>\n
knowledges that keep the other in a certain place\u2019.<\/div>\n
Beyond the construction of \u2018Islam\u2019 in national terms (Germanness versus Muslimness),<\/div>\n
some of the interviewees constructed Islam as a societal and personal problem-solving<\/div>\n
tool. Aziza, for example, criticized Arab countries for not using the Islamic financial<\/div>\n
system to improve Muslim people\u2019s lives:<\/div>\n
Islam offers a financial system, and why don\u2019t we use it as Muslims? Why doesn\u2019t an Islamic<\/div>\n
state do that? So, in the Arab countries? Why do you still make this credit? This financial<\/div>\n
system will crash some time, so why? Why can\u2019t we return to what Islam actually offers? By<\/div>\n
paying Zakat<\/span>. So that\u2019s just a social equality, so that the poor are not so poor that they have to <\/span><\/div>\n
die like they do in Somalia. We don\u2019t need a new interpretation [of Islam]; you can just take<\/div>\n
what is already there and implement it.<\/div>\n
For Hannah, Islam provided both psychological and physical solutions:<\/div>\n
So, I have multiple sclerosis, alopecia areata, and probably endometriosis. Everything that isn\u2019t<\/div>\n
nice. Well, I\u2019m just saying, that\u2019s a compliment of fate or god whatsoever, because I think, I<\/div>\n
imagine, there\u2019s a pot and there are bad things in it and good stuff in there and they have to be<\/div>\n
distributed. And who gets the bad ones? Those who can bear it. A friend of mine could not<\/div>\n
endure such a thing, she would collapse. Of course, if she does not get something like that, then<\/div>\n
I\u2019 ll get it. . . . And then I thought, a disease like alopecia areata, this involves hair loss and then<\/div>\n
I thought I looked bad, very bad, that I was like Gollum of Lord of the Rings<\/span>. That was bad. So,<\/div>\n
I do not have to, just because I have no hair, I do not have to look bad. So, then I started to wear<\/div>\n
a headscarf. Yes, I already converted [to Islam] but that was more to hide the hairlessness.<\/div>\n
Through their construction of \u2018Muslims\u2019, \u2018Muslim woman\u2019 and \u2018Muslim families\u2019,<\/div>\n
the interviewees constructed their newly adopted religion of \u2018Islam\u2019. It was rare for<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
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Sirri 115<\/span><\/div>\n
women converts to approach the Qur\u2019an or other religious texts to form their understand-<\/div>\n
ing of the religion. Through daily performances and observations of \u2018Muslims\u2019, Islam<\/div>\n
became something they feel more attracted to.<\/div>\n
While most women defined themselves as both Muslim and German, the dichotomy<\/div>\n
of \u2018German\u2019 and \u2018Muslim\u2019 (\u2018us\u2019 and \u2018them\u2019) was often repeated and reproduced in their<\/div>\n
narratives. Seeing oneself as a mediator presumes an already existing distinction between<\/div>\n
the two parameters one aims to mediate as well. Although their sense of belonging to<\/div>\n
these two \u2018separated\u2019 groups was sometimes challenged by others or by themselves, the<\/div>\n
interviewees were able to reconcile these two identities in their daily experiences.<\/div>\n
Longing to Belong<\/div>\n
I approach belonging in communities as an ongoing performative process of locating<\/div>\n
oneself in relation to communal boundaries of inclusion and exclusion. Probyn (1996)<\/div>\n
argues that the concept of belonging entails an element of longing<\/span> to belong. I therefore<\/div>\n
assume an affective dimension of identification and an aspiration to belong to certain<\/div>\n
communities.<\/div>\n
Lina\u2019s narration exemplifies the need to belong to a group, even when it comes with<\/div>\n
some costs, such as physical exhaustion:<\/div>\n
I always felt between the chairs . . . I felt the need to belong. As far as my family was concerned,<\/div>\n
when I converted to Islam, I had the feeling that nowhere else would I be one of them. I felt like<\/div>\n
I am not one and not the other. I always try to please everyone. I show the Muslims that I am a<\/div>\n
real Muslim, and my family I do not show the Muslim part, and that has finished me.<\/div>\n
In other narrations, the interviewees spoke about their new religion of \u2018Islam\u2019 almost as<\/div>\n
a physical place where one belongs. They described their conversion as \u2018angekommen<\/div>\n
sein\u2019 (to have arrived). Hannah\u2019s narration illustrates this feeling of belonging: \u2018Yes, I am<\/div>\n
home, this is now mine, the feeling of having arrived\u2019 (Hannah).<\/div>\n
In the process of belonging, there is, however, an element of differentiating oneself<\/div>\n
from others. Hannah, for example, found other German women who converted to Islam,<\/div>\n
whom she met in a mosque in Berlin, \u2018zu extrem\u2019 (too extreme), sitting there \u2018vollver-<\/div>\n
schleiert\u2019 (fully covered):<\/div>\n
There, at the mosque, German women who converted meet. I went there once and they were too<\/div>\n
extreme for me. I never went there again. They are too extreme. In the mosque, there was this<\/div>\n
group, and they sit there, totally covered, full-face cover. And I say \u2018You only need to be a nice<\/div>\n
person and not do any bad things and that\u2019s it. You don\u2019t have to do everything to the extreme\u2019.<\/div>\n
(Hannah)<\/div>\n
I find Hannah\u2019s account of her refusal to be part of or identify with the group of German<\/div>\n
women converts to Islam who attend the mosque an interesting example of blurring the<\/div>\n
communal boundaries. She rejected them both<\/span> as Germans and as Muslims. She wished<\/div>\n
to differentiate herself from this group of converts and refers to born Muslim women to<\/div>\n
validate such differentiation: \u2018I always say, my Muslim friends, who were born Muslims,<\/div>\n
they are also not like that. They are not extreme, why should I then, as a German, because<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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116 Feminist Theology 30(1)<\/span><\/div>\n
I converted, be extreme. Why then?\u2019 The constant comparison between \u2018German\u2019 and<\/div>\n
\u2018Muslim\u2019 is prominent in the narrations of all interviewees. These comparisons maintain<\/div>\n
and reproduce the construction of Germanness and Muslimness as two distinct group-<\/div>\n
ings. I discuss this notion in the section \u2018The Construction of Islam and Muslim(ness)\u2019.<\/div>\n
While Hannah distanced herself from this group of converts, other interviewees were<\/div>\n
motivated to befriend other German convert women, as they identified commonality with<\/div>\n
this group. Fortier (1999) suggests that the effects of forms of performative belonging can<\/div>\n
work to maintain religious affect and community, such that the question of belonging<\/div>\n
necessarily incorporates the issue of how common histories, experiences, and places are<\/div>\n
created, imagined, and sustained. In Lina\u2019s and Aziza\u2019s narrations, a common history and<\/div>\n
experiences between the group of converts are imagined. This process allows them to see<\/div>\n
themselves belonging to a certain community: \u2018I think because we [converts] just have a<\/div>\n
similar story. There are things that I experienced that born Muslim women did not experi–<\/span><\/div>\n
ence\u2019 (Lina). The same goes for Aziza: \u2018In the DMK [German Muslim Circle], most are<\/div>\n
converted, then it\u2019s just a special relationship and a special connection . . . one has had the<\/div>\n
same experience\u2019. Through different identifications, women constructed themselves as<\/div>\n
similar and as different; they affiliated themselves with certain groups or communities and<\/div>\n
distinguished between themselves and others by using articulated modes of belonging and<\/div>\n
not belonging. The narrations of the interviewees exemplify these processes.<\/div>\n
The term identification suggests a set of complex relations between one\u2019s own identi-<\/div>\n
fication with<\/span> or as<\/span> a group of others and being identified by<\/span> others. Therefore, the con-<\/span><\/div>\n
cepts of visibility and \u2018passing\u2019 need to be brought into the discussion. To be identified<\/div>\n
means to be viewed in a certain way, to be seen as a member of a certain category. The<\/div>\n
concept of visibility is therefore central to understanding the dynamics of identification.<\/div>\n
Ahmed (1999) stresses that<\/div>\n
Passing may equally function at the level of the intentional subject (the subject who seeks to<\/div>\n
pass in order to secure something otherwise unavailable to them), or it may function as a<\/div>\n
misrecognition on the part of the others (one may pass for something other than one\u2019s self-<\/div>\n
identification but not seek to, or know it). Passing may be successful, in which case the<\/div>\n
difference between the subject and the image assumed becomes unrecognisable, or it may fail,<\/div>\n
the subject may be detected as \u2018not being\u2019 the identity assumed. (p. 92)<\/div>\n
Take for example Huda\u2019s and Lina\u2019s decisions to don the veil. They did so with the<\/div>\n
intention to pass.<\/div>\n
While Huda struggled at the beginning with the issue of the veil while living in Cairo,<\/div>\n
she felt as if she was the only one in the street walking without hijab. Her need to pass<\/div>\n
and to be identified as Muslima resulted in her wearing the hijab, although she does not<\/div>\n
see it as a religious obligation. In Lina\u2019s case, she wanted to make a public declaration of<\/div>\n
her new identity. She wanted to announce herself as Muslim and be seen as such:<\/div>\n
\u2018Sometimes, I think it\u2019s easier with a headscarf, because it\u2019s clear: ok, I\u2019m a Muslim\u2019. In<\/div>\n
Lina\u2019s narration, the hijab represented a symbolic battle that stresses conflict and uses<\/div>\n
religious symbolism to demonstrate \u2018radical difference\u2019 (Wohlrab-Sahr, 2006), in this<\/div>\n
case, between German society and the Muslim community within Germany. The sym-<\/div>\n
bolic battle carried out here is a battle against socio-moral conventions and is based on a<\/div>\n
higher moral order, passing and belonging.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
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Sirri 117<\/span><\/div>\n
The assumption that no identity or belonging should be taken for granted does not mean<\/div>\n
that all identities are forms of passing<\/span> that are practised and performed, or viewed and seen,<\/div>\n
in a similar manner. Take, for example, Aziza\u2019s case. She described an encounter with peo–<\/span><\/div>\n
ple in the underground, who \u2018recognized\u2019 her as German but were confused by her wearing<\/div>\n
a headscarf. They asked her whether she was a nun. In this encounter, Aziza passed as a<\/div>\n
German Christian nun. Her actual Islamic religion was beyond the perceived limits of<\/div>\n
legitimate identification and belonging inherent to this (German) identity.<\/div>\n
It becomes evident that the reading of the interviewees\u2019 narrations and justifications<\/div>\n
for donning the veil strongly relies on performativity in the analysis of discursive articu-<\/div>\n
lations of identity and identification (Butler, 1990). This performative understanding of<\/div>\n
identities does not undercut their significance, as is sometimes argued, but rather stresses<\/div>\n
the processes of their reproduction and embodiment as key components of one\u2019s indi-<\/div>\n
vidual, social, cultural, and political life (Bell, 1999).<\/div>\n
The understanding of identity as performative suggests that it is the repetition, or, in<\/div>\n
Butler\u2019s terms, citation, of the conventions of a certain category of identity that consti-<\/div>\n
tutes the subject. These repetitive acts enable them to pass<\/span> as a carrier of that identity, as<\/div>\n
a subject who belongs to a particular community.<\/div>\n
Conclusion<\/div>\n
Conversion to Islam, and in particular, female conversion to Islam, is a growing phenom-<\/div>\n
enon. Many different factors and life experiences might lead to such a life-changing step.<\/div>\n
Especially in countries in the West, Islam is constructed as the excluded Other that needs<\/div>\n
to be feared and treated as threatening \u2018Western\u2019 societies. This research focused on<\/div>\n
German women who converted to Islam. Through their narrations, I aimed at analysing<\/div>\n
and understanding not the reasons that lead to conversion, but rather how, after conver-<\/div>\n
sion, these women construct notions of \u2018gender\u2019 and \u2018Islam\u2019.<\/div>\n
From women\u2019s accounts, it became clear that their conversion to Islam was driven by<\/div>\n
a feeling of something lacking in their lives. Once they \u2018found\u2019 Islam, they felt \u2018ange-<\/div>\n
kommen sein\u2019; they felt \u2018at home\u2019 in their newly adopted religion. Islam provided them<\/div>\n
with structure both in their private lives \u2013 seen in the ways some perceive gender roles in<\/div>\n
Muslim families \u2013 and in public life \u2013 seeing themselves as performing the function of a<\/div>\n
bridge between two distinct communities, the German and the Muslim. Although some<\/div>\n
interviewees converted over 10 years ago and others are \u2018new\u2019 converts, they are all in<\/div>\n
the same stage of conversion, where they are fascinated by everything that is \u2018Islamic\u2019,<\/div>\n
and see (born) Muslims as happy people and the Muslim family as the ideal one. Aziza<\/div>\n
went further and criticized Muslim countries for not implementing Islamic laws, which<\/div>\n
she perceives as improving the quality of life of their citizens. While Aziza constructed<\/div>\n
Islam as a societal problem-solving tool, others constructed Islam as a micro problem-<\/div>\n
solving tool, for example, on the personal level. For Lina, who, for many years, could not<\/div>\n
have friendships with men without being romantically involved only to end up getting<\/div>\n
hurt, Islam created boundaries between the two sexes. For Hannah, Islam gave meaning<\/div>\n
to a tragedy that happened to her, and the Islamic dress code in the form of a hijab pro-<\/div>\n
vided a way to cope with her hair loss.<\/div>\n
The accounts of the interviewees make visible the structural reproduction of binary<\/div>\n
divisions. They reaffirm the process of the ongoing reproduction of Christian and Muslim,<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
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118 Feminist Theology 30(1)<\/span><\/div>\n
German and Ausl\u00e4nder<\/span> identities as contradictory. I have examined strategies of construc–<\/span><\/div>\n
tion and of meaning production of one\u2019s intersectional positioning in this socio-religious<\/div>\n
context in three main spheres of social interaction: the family, the Christian German com–<\/span><\/div>\n
munity, and the Muslim community. The intersectional positions of the multiple identifi–<\/span><\/div>\n
cations articulated by the interviewees were almost always comprehensive, being both<\/div>\n
German and Muslim, despite articulations of the contextual reversal of us<\/span> and them<\/span>. These <\/span><\/div>\n
contexts involved complex dynamics of self-identification and being identified by others,<\/div>\n
resulting in the reproduction of communal boundaries in different constellations.<\/div>\n
Depending on the context, women identified themselves with a certain group, and, at<\/div>\n
times, differentiated themselves from that group. The interview analysis highlighted addi–<\/span><\/div>\n
tional strategies employed by the interviewees in order to cope with the deviation of one\u2019s<\/div>\n
position from binary divisions. Ruling in favour of a certain element of one\u2019s identity and<\/div>\n
denouncing the other is one example. This is evident in the importance given to determin–<\/span><\/div>\n
ing the identity of the spouse and children.<\/div>\n
Discourse analysis exposed the repeated fusion and confusion of different categories.<\/div>\n
Religion, culture, and ethnicity were frequently substituted and used as signifiers for<\/div>\n
each other, for example, by using \u2018Arab\u2019 and \u2018Muslim\u2019 interchangeably, or \u2018Ausl\u00e4nder<\/span>\u2019 <\/span><\/div>\n
to refer to Muslim families. Being Muslim did not mean the subversion or undermining<\/div>\n
of their German identities to any of them. Nevertheless, some of the women often cate-<\/div>\n
gorized Muslim born women in Berlin as Ausl\u00e4nder<\/span>, therefore, identifying themselves as<\/div>\n
Other within the Muslim community.<\/div>\n
The encounters and identity boundaries reveal the construction of gendered and reli-<\/div>\n
gious identities in complex situations. Simultaneously, they make obvious the serious-<\/div>\n
ness and crucial implications of these boundaries for the lives of people and communities,<\/div>\n
their freedom, and their future. The discourse of adjustment practised and presented by<\/div>\n
the interviewees echoes the rejection of both absorption and separation. The gutes Leben<\/span>, <\/span><\/div>\n
the human flourishing, of White German women who have converted to Islam is achieved<\/div>\n
through a new configuration of Germanness and Muslimness.<\/div>\n
Funding<\/div>\n
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and\/or publication of this<\/div>\n
article.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Corresponding author:<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
Lana Sirri, Assistant Professor in Gender and Religion, Centre for Gender and Diversity, Faculty of Arts and<\/span><\/div>\n
Social Sciences, Maastricht University, The Netherlands.<\/span><\/div>\n
Email: lana.sirri@maastrichtuniversity.nl<\/span><\/div>\n
1031153FTH0010.1177\/09667350211031153Feminist Theology<\/span><\/span>Sirri<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
research-article2021<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Feminist Theology 2021, Vol. 30(1) 104 \u2013119\u00a9 The Author(s) 2021Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com\/journals-permissionsDOI: 10.1177\/09667350211031153 https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/home\/fth Lana Sirri Maastricht University, The Netherlands Abstract This study explores the possibilities of identification and belonging in a socio-religious...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1695,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,5,4,153],"tags":[395,13],"class_list":["post-3320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-topics","category-human-rights","category-about-islam","category-religious-studies-and-research","tag-feminist","tag-islam-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/investigate-islam.com\/web\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/investigate-islam.com\/web\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/investigate-islam.com\/web\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investigate-islam.com\/web\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investigate-islam.com\/web\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3320"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/investigate-islam.com\/web\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3321,"href":"https:\/\/investigate-islam.com\/web\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3320\/revisions\/3321"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investigate-islam.com\/web\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/investigate-islam.com\/web\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investigate-islam.com\/web\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investigate-islam.com\/web\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}