Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-995ml Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T07:10:27.952Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - ‘My Homeland is Husayn’: Transnationalism and Multilocality in Shi‘a Contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 October 2020

Oliver Scharbrodt
Affiliation:
University of Chester
Yafa Shanneik
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
Get access

Summary

Introduction

This volume engages with questions of migration, diaspora, transnationalism and multilocality in relation to Shi‘ism by focusing on the presence of Shi‘a communities in Muslim minority contexts. Significant research has been produced on Shi‘a minorities in the so-called Muslim world (Monsutti et al. 2007; Mervin 2010; Ridgeon 2012). The aim of this volume is to shift the focus to Shi‘a presences in non-Muslim societal contexts where Shi‘ites constitute ‘a minority within a minority’ (Sachedina 1994: 3) that has emerged in the process of migration, through conversion or both. The volume thereby makes important contributions to research on Shi‘a communities in unexplored contexts, adding to the growing body of research on Shi‘ites in Europe (Shanneik et al. 2017; Scharbrodt et al. 2019) and North America (Walbridge 1996; Takim 2009) and providing novel insights into Shi‘a communities in South America, South Asia and South East Asia (Formichi and Feener 2015). By concentrating on Shi‘a spaces in Muslim minority contexts, the volume opens up comparative perspectives on Shi‘a minority presences in diverse geographical areas outside of the so-called Muslim world. Thereby, the volume further illustrates the heterogeneity of ‘Shi‘a worlds’ (Mervin 2010: 9) and contributes to ‘de-centring Shi‘ism’ (Clarke and Künkler 2018) by shifting the focus not just outside of the Middle East but outside Muslim majority countries. Public and academic narratives on Shi‘ism are further widened by extending the scope of this volume to Shi‘a groups outside of Twelver Shi‘ism, investigating Bektashis in the Balkans, the Ahl-e Haqq from Iran and Alevis of Turkish background in Germany.

The volume contributes to recent debates on diasporic religion by presenting the case study of Shi‘ites as a minority within a minority and the challenges and opportunities such a setting entails. In light of geopolitical events in the Middle East post-Arab Spring and their global repercussions, the contributions in this volume equally question simplistic notions of Sunni–Shi‘a sectarianism and discourses that suggest a global politicisation of sectarian identities. While the reality of such processes cannot be dismissed, the contributions in this volume – based on extensive ethnographic research in a variety of contexts – interrogate crude suggestions of an Iranian alignment of global Shi‘a communities and of clear-cut sectarian boundaries between Sunnis and Shi‘ites.

Type
Chapter
Information
Shi'a Minorities in the Contemporary World
Migration, Transnationalism and Multilocality
, pp. 3 - 30
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×