Seminar: Making Room for Islam in the West: Senegalese Muslims in Europe and North America

Significant international migration from Islamic West Africa to Europe and North America began in the aftermath of World War II with a loosening of the laws that constrained the mobility of French imperial subjects and accelerated between the 1960s and 1990s. West African Muslims have been particularly successful in making room for Islam in the Western world. This seminar will investigate this process of space making and the ways in which Africans from the former French colonies in West Africa, especially Senegal, have been able to negotiate their inclusion in the Western public sphere at a time of increasing tensions with Islam.

Continuing influence from Africa

In contrast to Arab immigrants who have severed their links with moderate centres of Islamic spirituality in North Africa, the Senegalese have maintained strong bonds with sources of religious knowledge and authority in Africa and these remain powerful shapers of their Islamic identity. The continuing influence of religious ideas and leadership from the African continent has allowed Africans in Europe and North America to resist the wave of political radicalization that has recently swept other Muslim communities living in the West. The experiences of Senegalese Muslims in the West will be considered by exploring their communal religious life, their connections to home, their insertion in the European secular public sphere, and their attitude towards the state and institutions of civil society.

Please note that is seminar is on a Wednesday and not on our usual Thursday.