Abstract
The boundary between Muslims and non-Muslims is increasingly gaining in importance on a global scale. This paper focuses on boundary-making processes based on gender notions. Roughly speaking, stereotypical views on gender roles in Islam picture women and girls as victims of a repressive gender order dominated by men. Muslim immigrants’ children in Western Europe are especially concerned by such stereotyping, because the centre of their life is where they are born and grow up. Boundary-making processes represent Muslims as a homogeneous group, making it impossible to perceive the enormous internal diversity of Muslim immigrant groups. The analysis of an ethnographic example aims to uncover the views of four Swiss Muslim girls whose parents are Albanians from Macedonia. Their stories about how they live, including their religion, schooling, career aspirations and future plans, illustrate their multiple belonging. Eventually, a group discussion on swimming lessons highlights the active role of Muslim immigrants’ children, dealing with their needs and expectations.
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Notes
- 1.
A federal popular initiative can introduce changes into the Federal Constitution if 100,000 signatures of citizens are collected within 18 months (cf. Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_initiative_(Switzerland)).
- 2.
The project ‘Migration and religion and how these are perceived by children and young people in Switzerland’ (1.9.07–30.6.10) was financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation (see www.nrp58.ch). Additional data were collected as part of a Fellowship funded by the Jacobs Foundation Fellowship at the University of Zurich.
- 3.
For more details, see ‘Bericht des Bundesrates zur Situation der Muslime in der Schweiz’, available on: http://www.ejpd.admin.ch/content/dam/data/pressemitteilung/2013/2013-05-08/ber-d.pdf
- 4.
- 5.
Because (ethnic) Albanians in Switzerland have different nationalities, exact numbers are not available. In 2013, Switzerland counted 1.88 million foreigners corresponding to 23 % of the total population (FMO 2013). According to the 2000 census results, the number of Albanian-speaking people (including different foreign nationalities and naturalized Swiss citizens) accounts for about 170,000.
- 6.
All names are kept anonymous. The following interview sequences have been translated into English.
- 7.
See also Allenbach and Herzig (2010) for a previous version of this example.
- 8.
Cf. for example the guidelines of the canton of Zürich (VSA 2010): ‘If students are fasting for religious reasons and their physical performance is therefore limited, they can stay away from physical education during this time; they are to be kept busy with alternative educational activities. For that purpose a request of the parents has to be filed with the school in due time, verbally or in writing’ (translation B.A.).
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Allenbach, B. (2016). Do Muslim Girls Really Need Saving? Boundary-Making and Gender in Swiss Schools. In: Hunner-Kreisel, C., Bohne, S. (eds) Childhood, Youth and Migration. Children’s Well-Being: Indicators and Research, vol 12. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31111-1_3
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