Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewRemaking Islam in African Portugal highlights what being Muslim means in urban Europe and how Guinean migrants' relationships to their ritual practices must change as they remake themselves and their religion.
* Portuguese American Journal *
Grounded in rich fieldwork in both Guinea-Bissau and Portugal conducted across 20 years, this book is an ethnographer's dream. Oozing with gorgeous ethnographic details, the book at the same time tackles all the issues one could hope to think about concerning West African Muslims' lives in Europe. Challenges of racism. Challenges of Islamophobia. Challenges by mainstream Muslims of heterodox practices. All these big-picture issues frame the stories Michelle Johnson exquisitely tells.
-- Alma Gottlieb * AlmaGottlieb.com *
Table of Contents1. Faith and Fieldwork in African Lisbon
Part 1: Remaking Islam through Life Course Rituals
2. Name-Giving and Hand-Writing: Childhood Rituals and Embodying Islam
3. Making Mandinga, Making Muslims: Initiation, Circumcision, and Ritual Uncertainty
4. Distant Departures: Funerals, Post-Burial Sacrifices, and Rupturing Place and Identity
Part 2: Remaking Islam through Rituals Beyond the Life Course
5. Reversals of Fortune: From Healing-Divining to Astrology
6. "Welcome Back from Mecca!": Reimagining the Hajj
Epilogue: Faith, Food, and Fashion: Religion in Diaspora
Bibliography
Index