In recent years religious clothing has become prevalent across many European cities, making religious bodies more visible in public spaces. This paper brings together our separate research on Jews in Paris and Muslims in London. While recognising the clear differences between these two socio-political contexts and distinct religious groups, we suggest that a focus on clothing allows us to consider some points of similarity and difference in the presentation of gendered religious bodies, particularly in situations of heightened stigmatisation. We draw upon Goffman's notion of impression management, in contexts of risks and threats, to explore how individuals experience and negotiate self presentation as members of stigmatised religious groups. We use rich qualitative data based on indepth interviews to consider how, when faced with collective stigmatisation, actors make deliberate and measured choices to present themselves and attempt to impression manage.
À partir de l’exemple du monde juif, on donne ici quelques éléments de r éflexion sur l’usage et la pertinence de la notion de communauté, et sur l’intérêt de la dimension spatiale pour analyser le fait communautaire liée à la religion. En se démarquant des visions essentialisantes qui considèrent les communautés comme des groupes homogènes et fermés, on souligne le contraste entre la représentation très courante de l’existence d’ « une » communauté juive unie et uniforme, et la réalité de la diversité interne au monde juif. Il s’agit moins de poser des frontières autour d’une communauté que de comprendre la dimension spatiale dans la construction de communautés plurielles.
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