Counting Deviance: Revisiting a Decade’s Production of Surveys among Muslims in Western Europe

Johansen, Birgitte Schepelern; Spielhaus, Riem

doi:10.1163/221179512x644060

Cited by 28 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…If Roma were the preferred target of quantitative inquiries in Central and Southeastern Europe, according to Spielhaus (2011), an increasing number of surveys on Muslims have been developed in Western Europe. As Johansen and Spielhaus (2012) argue, Muslims generally are all seen as needing integration support, a conceptual approach very similar to that taken with Roma. The quantification of Muslims in Western Europe has been built on sampling strategies exclusively targeting neighbourhoods with large migrant populations and questionable conceptual premises (Johansen and Spielhaus, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As Johansen and Spielhaus (2012) argue, Muslims generally are all seen as needing integration support, a conceptual approach very similar to that taken with Roma. The quantification of Muslims in Western Europe has been built on sampling strategies exclusively targeting neighbourhoods with large migrant populations and questionable conceptual premises (Johansen and Spielhaus, 2012). Further studies are needed for exploring whether the research designs, data collection practices and interpretations in quantitative research have led to an oversimplified representation of Muslims and Roma in Europe and contributed to their stigmatization.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Why the “real” numbers on Roma are fictitious: Revisiting practices of ethnic quantification

Surdu

2019

Ethnicities

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This article scrutinizes the administrative and scientific practices by which the Gypsy/Roma category has been historically constructed in Europe, particularly in Central and South Eastern Europe. Censuses, police-led inquiries, social surveys and expert estimates made the ‘Roma’ category appear objective, making invisible the multiple technical and political decisions behind their interpretations. This paper examines the technologies behind the production of ethnic categories and that of Roma in particular: namely, guidelines and manuals for field workers, recruitment and census campaigns, consent forms, questionnaires, data processing, basic assumptions and interpretation of data. While expert networks give objectivity and flexibility to the collection and circulation of data, the labour involved in crafting ethnic statistics often remains obscure. This paper follows the historical departures and continuities of Roma categorization from the 18th century to present times. The category ‘Roma’ was produced and reproduced through quantification practices with the justification that ethnic data (or categorization) would help solve social problems and contribute to Roma integration. The technical literature reviewed in this paper and the auto-ethnographic analysis shed light on the machinery of ethnic categorization, and allows us to assess the impact of various kinds of labour upon this categorization: from the more visible work performed by ethnopolitical entrepreneurs and scholars – to the relatively invisible contributions of field workers, administrators and census takers. This article calls for a critical scrutiny of how Roma ethnicity is crafted through practices of ethnic quantification and encourages researchers to use methodological prudence and more self-reflection in their own academic practices.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why the “real” numbers on Roma are fictitious: Revisiting practices of ethnic quantification

Surdu

2019

Ethnicities

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“…This article presents a heuristic framework from a science studies perspective for investigating issues of classification, quantification and measurement related to migration and the ethnically and religiously diverse societies of Europe. Building on earlier work on quantification in the field of religion (Johansen and Spielhaus, 2012) and ethnicity (Rallu et al, 2006;Simpson, 2002;Supik, 2014), we suggest a framework with which to understand statistical representations of ethnicity, migration and religion as social practices in social contexts. It distinguishes four phases of social quantification that represent different practices in the investigation of social realities: preparing to count, collecting data, interpreting data and governing with data (see Table 1).…”

Section: A Conceptual Framework For Studying the Quantification Of MImentioning

confidence: 91%

Introduction to Special Issue: Matters of classification and representation: Quantifying ethnicity, religion and migration introduction

Supik

Spielhaus

2019

Ethnicities

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In addition to serving as an introduction to the subject, this paper suggests a conceptual framework for the investigation of issues of classification and quantification related to migration and the ethnically and religiously diverse societies in Europe. Nationality, ethnicity and religion are situational, contextual and dynamic social phenomena which tend to defy rigid classification, making it especially difficult to capture and quantify these entities in order to organize and represent them in an intelligible manner in official statistics (e.g. censuses), institutional governing practices or in academic survey research. By drawing on previous work by demographers and social researchers, we suggest a typological classification of ways in which diverse populations become statistically visible or invisible. We show that the rationale for creating classifications and particular sets of categories changes, depending on the political field in which data are used in the governance of populations and migration. A science studies perspective can make these diverse taxonomies the object of studies to understand how they are embedded within, and how they sustain, power relations. By focusing on practices of classification as instruments of research and governance, this special issue contributes to a reflection on the conditions and effects of quantifying practices in culturally diverse and constantly changing societies, in which the line between government and academia, between power and knowledge, is frequently indistinct.

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“…The real challenge is continuously to avoid the slippery slope of responsive sociology where the majority of the research being done is framed by questions formulated in the political sphere. This situation has to some extent already and for some years now been the reality regarding sociological work on Islam and Muslims in a Western context, where much research is carried out within a security nexus of religion, integration and radicalization (Sunier 2009, Johansen andSpielhaus 2012).…”

Section: Keeping the Categoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Post-secular sociology: modes, possibilities and challenges

Johansen

2013

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It is by now well known that the modern category of religion has evolved as part of a certain trajectory of Western history. Among its many aspects, this trajectory is about how religion became part of a definitive relationship with the category of the secular – a relationship that implies an understanding of religion as something distinct – and ideally # – from other categories such as science, politics, and law. The place of the category of religion as part of this semantic as well as institutional landscape of separations makes it relevant to probe the possible consequences for sociology, if we are, as some scholars have argued, living in contexts which are increasingly post-secular. What happens, then, to the object – as well as the self-identity – of the study of religion? This article discusses some of the possible epistemological shifts inherent in the idea of a movement from secular to post-secular and it will reflect upon the possible avenues they open up for the sociological study of religion.

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Counting Deviance: Revisiting a Decade’s Production of Surveys among Muslims in Western Europe

Cited by 28 publications

References 3 publications

Why the “real” numbers on Roma are fictitious: Revisiting practices of ethnic quantification

Why the “real” numbers on Roma are fictitious: Revisiting practices of ethnic quantification

Introduction to Special Issue: Matters of classification and representation: Quantifying ethnicity, religion and migration introduction

Post-secular sociology: modes, possibilities and challenges

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