Call for Papers

“Power, Authority and Body: The Transformations of Islam in South-East Europe Between the 20th and the 21st Century”

Journal Occhialì – Rivista sul Mediterraneo islamico, No.5

Editors: Nathalie Clayer (EHESS – CNRS) and Gianfranco Bria (UniCal – CETOBaC)

Publisher: Occhialì – Laboratory for Islamic and Mediterranean studies, University of Calabria, Italy

Submission Deadline: May 31, 2019

After thirty years, the publication of Alexander Popovic’s book, L’Islam Balkanique (Berlin, Otto Harrassowitz, 1986), the academic studies on South-Eastern European Muslims have deeply changed due to many political events within the Balkan space and to several mutations in the field of social sciences.

Nonetheless, the studies of South-East European Muslims have not been exclusively conditioned by political events – transformations in social sciences at the global level have also shaped the evolution of this topic…

Starting from this perspective, in the upcoming issue of the Occhialì review, we propose to develop a reflection on the relationship between power, authority and body in the framework of the transformations of Islam in the societies of Southeast Europe from the end of the Ottoman era on, in order to overcome those analyses that too often focus on the normative and institutional aspects only.

The aim is to analyze the performative intervention of certain normative discourses and coercive techniques on the Islamic tradition, on the forms of socialization and on the more or less institutionalized civil and identity foundations of Balkan societies. In this sense, to conceive religion as power and knowledge makes it possible to distinguish, on one side, the institutional definition of religion given by the authorities – sometimes acting in a creative and / or rational way (in Weber’s sense) – and, on the other hand, the meta- institutional dimension of the believers.

In this sense, the questions of the veil and the female role are paradigmatic and can be examined. Also other areas, such as rituals, consumption, sport, sociabilities, representations and bodily performance, as well as the intra- and inter-confessional tensions, can be heuristically interesting to analyze the process of secularization.

The articles must be sent by 31/05/2019. Texts are accepted in Italian, English and French.

More information on: Occhialì – Laboratory for Islamic and Mediterranean studies