A Genealogy of Muslims Dying in France

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Nur Yasemin Ural

The question of the death of a Muslim in France engenders a discussion on the forms and limits of secularisation in the public sphere. Contrary to other public institutions like schools, hospitals and prisons, the particularity of mortuary spaces lies in their nearly uncontested religious character, also recognised by the French state. Despite the fact that repatriation remains to be the dominant practice among French Muslims, the descending generations, who overtly declare their identities as Muslim and European at the same time, seek to obtain their place within the European public sphere. Yet accommodating deceased bodies of Muslims within the so-called secular cemeteries represents a real challenge in terms of space, recognition of religious identities and application of Islamic funerary rites. The regulations imposed by the French authorities seem to pose serious problems to Muslims, who desire to be buried in accordance with the requirements of their religion. In this respect the cemetery becomes a realm of spatio-temporal struggle, where subjectivities are formed via negotiations between the subjects—dead or alive—and state apparatuses. This article aims to reflect on the power struggles in the development of the mortuary space from a historical perspective. It will then attempt to shed light on the legal possibility of the construction of the only French Muslim cemetery inaugurated in Strasbourg in 2012.

Author(s):  
Brieuc Lits

This paper seeks to shed light on astroturf lobbying, a strategy that recently invaded the European public. Its purpose is to simulate citizen support for a specific issue whilst keeping its identity secret. The public sphere is envisaged as a constellation of issues around which gravitate interest groups that try to influence the debate, and doing so by carefully frame their messages. In the case of the shale gas debate in the EU, the question that emerged is to see whether astroturf groups convey the economic frames used by the oil and gas companies they represent, or if they mobilised environmental frames such as shale gas opponents. Results show that the astroturf group mostly emphasized the safety of hydraulic fracturing and tried to counter the environmental frames of competing NGOs.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shereen Fernandez

AbstractThe Prevent Duty is part of the UK’s counter-extremism strategy, which aims to prevent individuals from becoming involved in ‘extremism’ and ‘radicalisation’. As a pre-crime measure, the duty is now enforced in public institutions in the UK, from schools to healthcare provisions, and relies on frontline staff to monitor and report on ‘signs’ of extremism and radicalisation. The discussion around Prevent has focused on its implementation and impacts in the public sphere, notably in schools. However, this article aims to disrupt the imagined boundaries of the Prevent Duty and demonstrate how, as a result of this policy, the home—primarily the Muslim home—is treated as a pre-crime space, thus broadening the reach of counter-extremism measures into the private sphere.


2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 28-41
Author(s):  
Karthik Ramanna

Fifty years ago Milton Friedman famously argued that the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits, which today are at record highs. And, as public institutions falter, business is now offering to step into the void. We must resist this (further) intrusion of business into the public sphere, as it will further depreciate civic institutions. The business of business is business, and so it should be. Business’ track record in public politics has been to engineer the rules of the game to its own advantage.


2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 153-175
Author(s):  
Masayoshi Sumika

Jürgen Habermas, who popularized the concept of the “post-secular,” advocates that all citizens should be free to decide whether they want to use religious language in the public sphere. However, he adds the proviso that citizens who do so must accept that religious utterances ought to be translated into generally accessible language. Habermas presents this concept of “translation”—or the institutional translation proviso—as a way of bringing religious citizens into the public sphere. In his opinion, the public sphere and/or public institutions should not be open to any movement that tries to legitimize the nation on religious grounds. This paper shows that we can find logic and rhetoric that correspond to Habermas’s proviso in courtroom arguments over religion in Japan after World War II. By surveying these disputes, this paper examines whether or not the intended aims of the institutional translation proviso are achieved.


2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 401-414
Author(s):  
Elaheh Koolaee

AbstractWomen in Iran have gained unprecedented experiences in the course of their fight for democracy and human rights. In the Pahlavi era, the modernisation model was based on Western patterns. With the Islamic Revolution, a new generation of Iranian women emerged in social arenas. Ayatollah Khomeini always emphasised women's prominent and important role in social life. His views shed light on potentials for women's rights, but the obstacle of old cultural and historical attitudes have made these ideas difficult to actualise. The weakness of civil organisations, including women's political and non-political organisations, has seriously affected the outcomes. Although a reformist government and the reinforcement of governmental institutions concerned with women's affairs can play a part in improving the situation of women, women's civil society organisations can assume responsibilities at social levels in order to complement the role of the representatives. The author discusses the process of women's entrance in the public sphere and efforts by the 6th parliament to protect their rights.


Author(s):  
Nicu Gavriluță

The issue of employability and the development of entrepreneurship presents a real challenge, given that today’s labor market is highly dynamic. Projections made for the next twenty years indicate important changes. The present study capitalizes on a research carried out in the Romanian academic environment, within three universities. The sample included students and employers from the public sphere. Our research reveals that the services available in three Romanian universities are developing in two main directions: one concerns working with students and developing their skills to become attractive on the labor market. Another direction is one that mediates between the academic world and the business environment. The results obtained through our research capture the policies and services of higher education in order to better train students and increase their employment opportunities. The options and expectations of students regarding the insertion on the labor market are contrasted to those of employers. This is the only way we can think of functional and flexible models for educating future employees in order to be able to face the new challenges of the labor market.


2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 673-693 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mayte Peters

Democratically legitimized European integration calls for developments in culture and society—which arise naturally in the scope of on-going political, economic and institutional European Union (EU) integration—to be publically debated so they may be politically processed. The space where this happens is the public sphere, or, in the context of the EU, the European public sphere. The latter complements national public spheres. Successful integration among EU Member States is made possible by adhering to a common set of values at the same time as respecting the national identities of the Member States and fostering cultural diversity. By way of Union citizenship rights, individuals are able to make use of and actively promote the Europeanization of societies and cultures. Yet citizens are affected by Europeanization to differing degrees, with only a minority of citizens actively partaking in transnational exchange. In order to account for European integration democratically, the EU treaties hold provisions allowing for a close institutional interdependence of national and European democracy.


2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 108-117
Author(s):  
Olha Yurko

The features of functioning of information system in the society of the Second modern in conditions of military conflict are analyzed in the article. Also we tried to analyze connection of this features with characteristics of the political and economic systems of this type of society. Television continues to be the main source of information about state of affairs in Ukraine and in the world, although it’s influence is decreasing. The concentration of media ownership in the hands of financial and industrial groups, associated with political forces, is an important issue. Online media and social networks are the second among the sources of information about state of affairs in Ukraine and in the world. Their increasing influence raises the question of the power of large internet companies, who have the ability to control information flows, provide an opportunity to use the information aggregated by them for the application of specific political technologies of influence on the public sphere. These companies are out of control of the regulatory mechanisms of state institutions in most countries, which creates vulnerabilities in the public sphere of nation-states to influence from other countries and unregulated aspects of online electoral campaigns. The crisis of confidence in traditional media increases the importance of offline and online networks of social interactions as a source of information. Data in Ukraine, Europe and USA show that loss of confidence in public institutions, rise of populism directly related to the decline in confidence in traditional media. The level of trust in vaccination in different regions of the world is also analyzed in the context of the functioning of media institutions and other public institutions. Modern media (both traditional and internet) tend to mix entertaining formats with political information. Converting policy to show, spreading fakes, noticeable dependence of media on certain political and economic groups and media’s partiality, weakening of expert filters undermines confidence in traditional and new media. Although the importance of social media for the democratization of the public sphere exists. Decreasing confidence in media in general converted to the сonfidence in concrete media figures (bloggers, experts etc.). The article also contains generalization of researches of media consumption in Ukraine in first part of 2019.


INvoke ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Romanik ◽  
Mark Guerrero

In this paper, I explore discourses of gay male sex and homosexuality in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948) as it situates within the highly-restrictive moral landscape of the Motion Picture Production code era. Although the restrictive economy surrounding these regulations had supposedly expurgated all discourses of sex and sexuality from the public sphere, I will draw on Foucault’s History of Sexuality (1984) to argue that this was not the case. Instead, I shed light on the paradox of censorship, by which the shrewd restriction of sexuality has transformed gay male sex into a topic of discussion. I then offer a critique of Hitchcock’s spectacularization of gay male sex, urging us to question how discourses of gay male sex are being constructed and who is constructing these discourses.


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