Othering, Alienation and Establishment

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between religion and the state, focusing on cases of establishment in which one religion is formally recognized. Arguing that religious establishment is wrong if it causes some citizens to feel alienated, we reject the criticism that feelings of alienation are too subjective a foundation for a robust normative case about establishment. We base our argument on an account of collective identities, which may have an ‘inside’ but are also subject to a process of othering in which a dominant group imposes an identity on a subordinate group. The establishment of a religion may contribute to othering, and the othered group may consequently be alienated from the state. However, since establishment does not always cause alienation, it is necessary to seek evidence and engage in a dialogue in order to understand a group’s own account of its experience of its situation.

Embodied Othering Encounters with Muslim(‐Looking) Passengers: Riding across Amsterdam, Tallinn, Leipzig, and Turku1

“…Passengers are not only the other, a stranger outside the network of family and friends, but also the Other, members of a dominated out‐group whose identity is considered different. As a form of intensive being, or in this case riding, with random o/Others (Officer and Kearns 2017), Othering happens as a process through which difference is translated into inferiority drawing a line between “us” and “them” based on a certain self and body (Conti 2018; Jensen 2009b; Modood and Thompson 2021). For Campbell (2001:44), Othering is “a network of beliefs, processes and practices that produces a particular kind of self and body (the corporeal standard) that is projected as the perfect, species‐typical and therefore essential and fully human.”…”

“I’m Trying to Give Them My Face.” Everyday Embodied Agency of the Muslim Other in Amsterdam

“…However, they are not powerless in the face of Othering; Muslims are never merely the passive object of Othering processes. They are always able to exercise their agency and respond to some degree to the subjected Othering which Modood and Thompson (2021) call "de-Othering." Muslims employ socio-spatial practices, the ways in which they imagine where they may encounter Othering to reduce the possibilities of racial attacks in public spaces (Itaoui 2016(Itaoui , 2020Itaoui and Dunn 2017).…”

“…However, they are not powerless in the face of Othering; Muslims are never merely the passive object of Othering processes. They are always able to exercise their agency and respond to some degree to the subjected Othering which Modood and Thompson (2021) call “de‐Othering.” Muslims employ socio‐spatial practices, the ways in which they imagine where they may encounter Othering to reduce the possibilities of racial attacks in public spaces (Itaoui 2016, 2020; Itaoui and Dunn 2017). The spatialization of Islamophobia, thus, is about the relationship between visibility (which fosters Islamophobia within) and invisibility (which reduces Islamophobia by removing Muslims from) certain urban spaces.…”

“…For Modood (2013, 2019; also Modood and Thompson 2021), Othering is a process through which a dominant group assigns negative properties to a subordinate group making that minority the Other, inferior, threatening. The Othering of Muslims takes different forms such as racialization, alienation, discrimination, exclusion, and structural oppression (Slaby and Mühlhoff 2019).…”

“…The Othering of Muslims takes different forms such as racialization, alienation, discrimination, exclusion, and structural oppression (Slaby and Mühlhoff 2019). A racialized form of Othering, as Modood and Thompson (2021) argue, derives from distinctive bodily features which impute a negative and stereotypical image to Muslims. This narrative assigns Muslims to a prototypical body: a body with a brown skin tone, limited linguistic skills, and signs of religion such as the beard and the veil (Hamzeh 2011; Love 2009; Sargent and Larchanche 2007; Selod 2015; Selod and Embrick 2013).…”