Skip to main content
Contribution to Book
Nationalism and Minority Identities in Islamic Societies
Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Book and Media Gallery
  • Maya Shatzmiller
  • David Crawford, Fairfield University
Role

Editor: Maya Shatzmiller

Contributing author: David L. Crawford

Document Type
Book
Description/Summary

David Crawford is a contributing author, "Royal Interest in Local Culture: The Politics and Potential of Morocco’s Imazighen", pp. 164-194.

Book description: The movement of nation building in Islamic societies away from the secular or Pan-Arab models of the early twentieth century toward a variety of nationalisms was accompanied by growing antagonism between the Muslim majority and ethnic or religious minorities. The papers in Nationalism and Minority Identities in Islamic Societies offer a comparative analysis of how these minorities developed their own distinctive identities within the modern Islamic nation-state. The essays focus on identity formation in five minority groups - Copts in Egypt, Baha'is and Christians in Pakistan, Berbers in Algeria and Morocco, and Kurds in Turkey and Iraq. While every minority community is distinctive, the experiences of these groups show that a state's authoritarian rule, uncompromising attitude towards expressions of particularism, and failure to offer tools for inclusion are all responsible for the politicization and radicalization of minority identities. The place of Islam in this process is complex: while its initial pluralistic role was transformed through the creation of the modern nation-state, the radicalization of society in turn radicalized and politicized minority identities. Minority groups, though at times possessing a measure of political autonomy, remain intensely vulnerable.

ISBN
9780773528475
Publication Date
1-1-2005
Publication Information

Crawford, David L. "Royal Interest in Local Culture: The Politics and Potential of Morocco’s Imazighen” in Nationalism and Minority Identities in Islamic Societies, ed. Maya Shatzmiller. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press. Pp. 164-194. 2005.

Citation Information
Maya Shatzmiller and David Crawford. "Nationalism and Minority Identities in Islamic Societies" (2005)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/david_crawford/7/