After integration: Islam, conviviality and contentious politics in Europe

Abstract

Over the last two decades, scholarly literatures on Islam and Muslims in European societies have proliferated in unprecedented ways. These literatures mirror not only the widening of public interest in this topic amongst politicians, civil society players and European populations at large, which is evidenced in the institutionalization of debates on Islam in political life, judicial discourse, journalism and the infrastructures of new media. They also reflect the growing space, which issues of Islam occupy outside the established disciplinary spheres of research on Islam as a religion (such as the sociology and anthropology of religion or religious studies). Thus, Islam has turned into a hot topic in political science, public policy research, migration studies, international relations and security studies. Some of these emerging literatures are characterized by a very presentist take on their object and are focused on very particular conflicts, often drawn from media discourse or legal dispute.