![Sample our Social Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110822/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Social-Sciences.jpg"})
Abstract
This article discusses the relationship between national, ethnic and religious identities as embodied by so-called ethnic Danes who convert to Islam. The point of departure is the constructed polarisation between Islam and the West. The article explores how converts experience their apparently contradictory identities as ‘Danish’ and ‘Muslim’. Identity is dealt with as processes of both difference and similarity, whereby the constructions of ‘self’ as ‘same’ and ‘other’ as ‘different’ are questioned. In exploring the space between ‘self’ and ‘other’ among Danish converts, it is argued that they negotiate their identities as both Danish and Muslims by engaging in an ideological struggle over otherwise commonsense meanings. This process opens a space for re-making identity by connecting relations between these identities, which are otherwise perceived as having nothing in common.
Keywords:
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the Danish Research Council for Culture and Communication, which has financed the research project on ‘Conversion to Islam in Denmark’. I also thank the anonymous JEMS referees for their helpful comments and suggestions.
Notes
1. In Denmark, there is no law against the exhibition of religious symbols in public. It is, however, an issue that is constantly debated.
2. The Danish People's Party (Dansk Folkeparti), a populist right-wing political party, was established in 1995. The party has an anti-immigration platform. In the parliamentary elections of 2005, it took 24 seats out of 179, on 13.3 per cent of the vote, making it the third largest party in Denmark.
3. The survey consists of two samples. The one is based on questionnaires distributed in various Muslim organisations; the other is based on a questionnaire available at various Danish websites on Islam, such as islam.dk, islamisk.dk, and al-islam.dk.
4. Baumann develops three ‘grammars of identity/alterity’ that underlie different processes of selfing/othering, inspired by classic social theories represented by respectively Edward Saïd, Louis Dumont and E.E. Evans-Pritchard: 1) ‘Orientalisation’ based on binary classification and reverse mirror-imagining, which indicates opposition and total distance; 2) ‘segmentation’ based on segmentary and contextual fission and fusion, which indicates neutralisation of conflict and equality; and 3) ‘encompassment’ as an act of selving by appropriating otherness by hierarchical subsumption.
5. Most Muslim immigrants come from the former Yugoslavia, Turkey, Pakistan, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Morocco and Somalia.
6. Officially there are only two mosques in Denmark. However, the more popular ‘prayer rooms’ situated in different localities, above all in the immigrant neighbourhood of Nørrebro in Copenhagen, are also referred to as ‘mosques’ (moské).
7. There can only be estimations concerning the number of converts to Islam since the majority of converts do not register their conversion in a mosque, etc.
8. The shahada is the recognition that there is no God but Allah and that the messenger of Allah is the prophet Muhammad.
9. Sharia is the expression for the Islamic law system. The caliph is the political and religious leader of an Islamic state.
10. John Mogensen (1928–77) was a popular Danish singer known for his genre of cabaret-style socialist realism.
11. ‘Jens Vejmand’ (Jens, The Roadmender) is a poem from 1904 by Jeppe Aakjær about the Danish poor rural population. It was made into a ballad by the composer Carl Nielsen.
12. The Danish author Jens Sigsgaard's novel Palle Alone in the World (1942) is about a little boy who, in his dreams, lives in a world where he is completely alone and can therefore do and try everything he wants. After a while, however, he discovers that this is boring and lonely.
13. During the last decade, several new Muslim organisations have been founded: Muslims in Dialoque, Islamic–Christian Study Centre, Islamic Info and Lecture, Forum for Critical Muslims. The participants are mainly so-called second-generation migrants of Muslim background and converts.
14. The official date for the Ramadan in Copenhagen 2004 was from 14 October to 13 November, i.e. preceding Christmas by a few weeks.