The French government's 2004 decision to ban Islamic headscarves and other religious signs from public schools puzzled many observers, both because it seemed to infringe needlessly on religious ...freedom, and because it was hailed by many in France as an answer to a surprisingly wide range of social ills, from violence against females in poor suburbs to anti-Semitism.Why the French Don't Like Headscarvesexplains why headscarves on schoolgirls caused such a furor, and why the furor yielded this law. Making sense of the dramatic debate from his perspective as an American anthropologist in France at the time, John Bowen writes about everyday life and public events while also presenting interviews with officials and intellectuals, and analyzing French television programs and other media.
Bowen argues that the focus on headscarves came from a century-old sensitivity to the public presence of religion in schools, feared links between public expressions of Islamic identity and radical Islam, and a media-driven frenzy that built support for a headscarf ban during 2003-2004. Although the defense oflaïcité(secularity) was cited as the law's major justification, politicians, intellectuals, and the media linked the scarves to more concrete social anxieties--about "communalism," political Islam, and violence toward women.
Written in engaging, jargon-free prose,Why the French Don't Like Headscarvesis the first comprehensive and objective analysis of this subject, in any language, and it speaks to tensions between assimilation and diversity that extend well beyond France's borders.
Can islam be french? Bowen, John R
2010., 20090908, 2009, 2009-09-08, 20090101, Volume:
43
eBook
Can Islam Be French? is an anthropological examination of how Muslims are responding to the conditions of life in France. Following up on his book Why the French Don't Like Headscarves, John Bowen ...turns his attention away from the perspectives of French non-Muslims to focus on those of the country's Muslims themselves. Bowen asks not the usual question--how well are Muslims integrating in France?--but, rather, how do French Muslims think about Islam? In particular, Bowen examines how French Muslims are fashioning new Islamic institutions and developing new ways of reasoning and teaching. He looks at some of the quite distinct ways in which mosques have connected with broader social and political forces, how Islamic educational entrepreneurs have fashioned niches for new forms of schooling, and how major Islamic public actors have set out a specifically French approach to religious norms. All of these efforts have provoked sharp responses in France and from overseas centers of Islamic scholarship, so Bowen also looks closely at debates over how--and how far--Muslims should adapt their religious traditions to these new social conditions. He argues that the particular ways in which Muslims have settled in France, and in which France governs religions, have created incentives for Muslims to develop new, pragmatic ways of thinking about religious issues in French society.
On British Islamexamines the history and everyday workings of Islamic institutions in Britain, with a focus on shariʿa councils. These councils concern themselves with religious matters, especially ...divorce. They have a higher profile in Britain than in other Western nations. Why? Taking a historical and ethnographic look at British Islam, John Bowen examines how Muslims have created distinctive religious institutions in Britain and how shariʿa councils interpret and apply Islamic law in a secular British context.
Bowen focuses on three specific shariʿa councils: the oldest and most developed, in London; a Midlands community led by a Sufi saint and barrister; and a Birmingham-based council in which women play a leading role. Bowen shows that each of these councils represents a prolonged, unique experiment in meeting Muslims' needs in a Western country. He also discusses how the councils have become a flash point in British public debates even as they adapt to the English legal environment.
On British Islamhighlights British Muslims' efforts to create institutions that make sense in both Islamic and British terms. This balancing act is rarely acknowledged in Britain-or elsewhere-but it is urgent that we understand it if we are to build new ways of living together.
In Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority country, Muslims struggle to reconcile radically different sets of social norms and laws, including those derived from Islam, local social norms, and ...contemporary ideas about gender equality and rule of law. In this 2003 study, John Bowen explores this struggle, through archival and ethnographic research in villages and courtrooms of the Aceh Province, Sumatra, and through interviews with national religious and legal figures. He analyses the social frameworks for disputes about land, inheritance, marriage, divorce, Islamic History and, more broadly, about the relationships between the state and Islam, and between Muslims and non-Muslims. The book speaks to debates carried out in all societies about how people can live together with their deep differences in values and ways of life. It will be welcomed by scholars and students across the social sciences, particularly those interested in anthropology, cultural sociology and political theory.
In this rich account of a Muslim society in highland Sumatra, Indonesia, John Bowen describes how men and women debate among themselves ideas of what Islam is and should be--as it pertains to all ...areas of their lives, from work to worship. Whereas many previous anthropological studies have concentrated on the purely local aspects of culture, this book captures and analyzes the tension between the local and universal in everyday life. Current religious differences among the Gayo stem from debates between "traditionalist" and "modernist" scholars that began in the 1930s, and reveal themselves in the ways Gayo discuss and perform worship, sacrifice, healing, and rites of birth and death, all within an Islamic framework. Bowen considers the power these debates accord to language, especially in arguments over spells, rites of farming, hunting, and healing. Moreover, he traces in these debates a general conception of transacting with spirits that has shaped Gayo practices of sacrifice, worship, and aiding the dead. Bowen concludes by examining the development of competing religious ideas in the highlands, the alternative ritual forms and ideas they have pro-mulgated, and the implications of this phenomenon for the emergence of an Islamic public sphere.
This book responds to the often loud debates about the place of Muslims in Western Europe by proposing an analysis based in institutions, including schools, courts, hospitals, the military, electoral ...politics, the labor market, and civic education courses. The contributors consider the way people draw on practical schemas regarding others in their midst who are often categorized as Muslims. Chapters based on fieldwork and policy analysis across several countries examine how people interact in their everyday work lives, where they construct moral boundaries, and how they formulate policies concerning tolerable diversity, immigration, discrimination, and political representation. Rather than assuming that each country has its own national ideology that explains such interactions, contributors trace diverse pathways along which institutions complicate or disrupt allegedly consistent national ideologies. These studies shed light on how Muslims encounter particular faces and facets of the state as they go about their lives, seeking help and legitimacy as new citizens of a fast-changing Europe.
In this powerful, but accessible new study, John Bowen draws on a full range of work in social anthropology to present Islam in ways that emphasise its constitutive practices, from praying and ...learning to judging and political organising. Starting at the heart of Islam - revelation and learning in Arabic lands - Bowen shows how Muslims have adapted Islamic texts and traditions to ideas and conditions in the societies in which they live. Returning to key case studies in Asia, Africa and Western Europe, to explore each major domain of Islamic religious and social life, Bowen also considers the theoretical advances in social anthropology that have come out of the study of Islam. A New Anthropology of Islam is essential reading for all those interested in the study of Islam and for those following new developments in the discipline of anthropology.
In this volume, eight scholars of Indonesian Islam examine women's access to property in law courts and in village settings. The chapters go beyond the world of legal and scriptural texts to ask how ...women in fact fare at critical moments of marriage, divorce, and death.
Background
Cutaneous carcinosarcoma is a rare tumor with distinct malignant epithelial and mesenchymal cell populations. The histologic subtypes of epithelial and mesenchymal components in cutaneous ...carcinosarcoma are variable, as an assortment of carcinomatous and sarcomatous patterns have been described in the literature.
Methods
Clinical information was obtained from patient charts and archival slides were retrieved and reviewed.
Results
We present a novel series of six distinct cases of cutaneous carcinosarcoma and review the literature. Our cases consisted of basal cell, pilomatrical, squamous cell, and trichoblastic variants. These cases occurred in elderly men on sun exposed skin with treatment and follow up was available for 4 of 6 cases. The four cases were treated with Mohs micrographic surgery with mean follow up of nine months.
Conclusion
We report six cases of cutaneous carcinosarcoma with distinctive clinical and histologic characterization not previously described in a single series.
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I argue here that in French political discourse, the term laïcité works as what W. B. Gallie has called an “essentially contested concept”, and that consequently we should study its strategic uses in ...specific debates rather than treating it as a neutral analytic concept. I then develop the argument that the term laïcité marks a history of governance involving both control and support of religious institutions, not a simple separation, and I focus on the case of Islam. In what follows, I examine the negotiations between state actors and their Muslim interlocutors concerning ways to meet policy goals without violating sensibilities of laïcité. In some cases, such as schools and mosques, these negotiations rest on a legal distinction between a cultural or educational association (and which draws on the importance of associational life noted by Tocqueville) and a religious one. Central to these policy debates are arguments about public space. The careful nesting of public and private spaces in certain cemeteries provides a detailed example, as does the state’s delegation of authority to the three “great mosques” of France regarding religious sacrifice, the licensing of approved sacrificers, and the marketing of foods as halal.
