Abstract
In this paper, the authors unpack ‘social remittances’ in the context of religiously motivated transnational Islamic charity, focusing on education and gender equality. They approach social transformation by seeing migration as enmeshed in social change, with both intended and unintended outcomes. Their study adopts a multi-sited approach, tracing circulation between Lahore, London and Oslo as key sites in this transnational social field, drawing on semi-structured interviews, observation and informal interaction with actors engaged in Islamic charity. The authors find that negotiations over the meaning of ideas across transnational social fields in their case foregrounds a transcendental layer, and underscores the need for critical attention to the implications of a ‘diaspora bias’ in analyses of social remittances exchanges.
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Notes
- 1.
In the analysis all names of the organisations and individuals have been changed.
- 2.
This is similar to what Levitt and Merry (2009: 447) describe in their discussion of ‘global value packages’ as a ‘fundamentalist religious package, based on gender complementarity, tradition, conservatism, and authority’.
- 3.
The Organisation for Education does not provide loans for repayment.
- 4.
This is equivalent to approximately 21 EUR.
- 5.
This is equivalent to approximately 21,000 EUR.
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Borchgrevink, K., Erdal, M.B. (2016). The Circulation of Transnational Islamic Charity. In: Nowicka, M., Šerbedžija, V. (eds) Migration and Social Remittances in a Global Europe. Europe in a Global Context. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-60126-1_12
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