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Choosing Faith and Facing Race : = Converting to Islam in France and the United States.

Record Type:	Language materials, manuscript : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	Choosing Faith and Facing Race :/
Reminder of title:	Converting to Islam in France and the United States.
Author:	Galonnier, Juliette.
Description:	1 online resource (892 pages)
Notes:	Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 79-03(E), Section: A.
Contained By:	Dissertation Abstracts International79-03A(E).
Subject:	Sociology. -
Online resource:	click for full text (PQDT)
ISBN:	9780355295573

Choosing Faith and Facing Race : = Converting to Islam in France and the United States.
Galonnier, Juliette.

Choosing Faith and Facing Race :Converting to Islam in France and the United States. - 1 online resource (892 pages)

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 79-03(E), Section: A.

Thesis (Ph.D.)

Includes bibliographical references

This dissertation is about race and religion. These two categories are crucial to how people classify others and position themselves in the world. While scholars typically understand them separately, my research proposes instead to explore instances in which they are conflated. Specifically, I track occurrences of racial reasoning in relation to the religion of Islam in Western societies. Empirically, I focus on conversion to Islam to disentangle the intricacies of race and religion. Because conversion implies crossing religious boundaries, converts shed light on the nature and content of such boundaries, and enable us to decide whether they are simply religious or also embody racial difference. The case of white converts is particularly interesting in this respect: because their conversion implies transitioning from one social status (majority) to another (minority), they offer a near-experimental case to investigate how racial categorization operates. Methodologically, I combine the meticulousness of qualitative methods with the bird's eye view of comparatism. Using in-depth interviewing with 82 converts in France and the United States; ethnographic observations in convert associations in Paris and Chicago; and content analysis of media and historical documents, I compare the past and present experiences of French and American Muslim converts to answer the following: how and when is conversion to Islam interpreted in terms of changing one's racial status rather than a mere change in religious orientation?

Electronic reproduction.
Ann Arbor, Mich. :
ProQuest,
2018

Mode of access: World Wide Web

ISBN: 9780355295573Subjects--Topical Terms:

551705
Sociology.
Index Terms--Genre/Form:

554714
Electronic books.

Choosing Faith and Facing Race : = Converting to Islam in France and the United States.
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100 1 $a Galonnier, Juliette. $3 1183241
245 1 0 $a Choosing Faith and Facing Race : $b Converting to Islam in France and the United States.
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300 $a 1 online resource (892 pages)
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500 $a Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 79-03(E), Section: A.
500 $a Advisers: Carolyn Chen; Marco Oberti.
502 $a Thesis (Ph.D.) $c Northwestern University $d 2017.
504 $a Includes bibliographical references
520 $a This dissertation is about race and religion. These two categories are crucial to how people classify others and position themselves in the world. While scholars typically understand them separately, my research proposes instead to explore instances in which they are conflated. Specifically, I track occurrences of racial reasoning in relation to the religion of Islam in Western societies. Empirically, I focus on conversion to Islam to disentangle the intricacies of race and religion. Because conversion implies crossing religious boundaries, converts shed light on the nature and content of such boundaries, and enable us to decide whether they are simply religious or also embody racial difference. The case of white converts is particularly interesting in this respect: because their conversion implies transitioning from one social status (majority) to another (minority), they offer a near-experimental case to investigate how racial categorization operates. Methodologically, I combine the meticulousness of qualitative methods with the bird's eye view of comparatism. Using in-depth interviewing with 82 converts in France and the United States; ethnographic observations in convert associations in Paris and Chicago; and content analysis of media and historical documents, I compare the past and present experiences of French and American Muslim converts to answer the following: how and when is conversion to Islam interpreted in terms of changing one's racial status rather than a mere change in religious orientation?
520 $a This research unfolds in three stages. First, I show that converts embrace Islam as a faith and situate their conversion within the repertoire of religious individualism. Second, because Islam has been racialized in both the American and French contexts, I demonstrate that converts, especially those who don the visual attributes of Islam, experience a shift in their racial status: no longer categorized as "white," they expose themselves to stigmatization and discrimination in the larger society. In parallel, they also become very visible as whites within the Muslim community. These series of racial objectifications jeopardize converts' individualistic claims, for they now have to wear the mark of the plural, both as Muslims and as whites. Third, I demonstrate that converts resort to a variety of strategies to redefine both Islam and whiteness, in order to assert the legitimacy of their conversion.
520 $a In addition to shedding light on the complex interplay between race and religion, this research contributes to transatlantic comparative scholarship. Each of the three stages outlined above reveals similarities and differences across the French and American contexts. Overall, I find that converts' personal experiences are shaped by a constellation of issues, which include: the racial stratification system (black vs. white divide in the US, post-colonial immigrant vs. native divide in France), race frames (color-conscious in the US, color-blind in France), the secularism regime (embracing in the US, defiant in France), the cultural conception of religion (central in the US, unintelligible in France), and the demographics of the Muslim minority (African-American vs. Immigrant divide in the US, North African dominance in France). Taken together, these configurations durably inform the religious conversion process, the encounter with race and the strategies available to converts to reclaim control over their definition of self.
533 $a Electronic reproduction. $b Ann Arbor, Mich. : $c ProQuest, $d 2018
538 $a Mode of access: World Wide Web
650 4 $a Sociology. $3 551705
650 4 $a Islamic studies. $2 bicssc $3 1008713
650 4 $a Ethnic studies. $2 bicssc $3 809601
655 7 $a Electronic books. $2 local $3 554714
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710 2 $a ProQuest Information and Learning Co. $3 1178819
710 2 $a Northwestern University. $b Sociology. $3 1183242
773 0 $t Dissertation Abstracts International $g 79-03A(E).
856 4 0 $u http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=10289509 $z click for full text (PQDT)