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In the introduction to this special issue, we briefly introduce everyday bordering as the theoretical framing for the papers and explore its relationship to the process of racialization. We introduce our situated intersectional approach to the study of everyday bordering, illustrating the importance of capturing the differentially situated gazes of a range of social actors. We then go on to contextualize the importance of this framing and approach in a wider discussion of Roma in Europe before concluding with a summary of the particular contributions of each of the papers in this special issue to these debates. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This introduction to the Special Issue "Rethinking Islam and Space in Europe" advocates for an analytical turn in the study of Islam in Europe by using space as a central conceptual lens. While spatial approaches are gaining traction in the study of religion, migration, ethnicity, and race, we argue that the critical potential of spatial approaches remains largely unexplored. This paper offers a threefold contribution. First, we show how combining spatial perspectives with local histories contributes to de-exceptionalising the contemporary study of Islam in urban contexts. Second, by "localising secularism" we can uncover concrete formations of exclusion and erasure, while also providing a more refined picture of the ways in which the agency of Muslims is negotiated. Third, we demonstrate how scrutinizing the nexus of time, race and Europe reveals colonial pasts and continuities that are disrupted and transformed by the movement of bodies through public spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Largely due to immigration, European societies have grown increasingly diverse. The current study seeks to determine how citizens characterize their experiences with this diversity and whether various types of intergroup exposure can influence immigration attitudes. This analysis takes a unique approach by comparing positive, negative, and neutral intergroup exposure characterizations, along with those reporting no exposure at all. Using internationally representative data from the 2014 European Social Survey, this paper demonstrates how these different characterizations predict citizens' immigration attitudes. Results indicate that positive and negative experiences have opposing effects that are roughly symmetrical in magnitude and both are more intense when experienced in high frequency. Neutral exposure is actually much more common than negative experiences and represents a net benefit compared to those with no exposure at all. The results present important implications for future research and highlight several encouraging patterns for diversity across Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to study the patterns of mobility from Spain to other European countries that have emerged since the economic crisis of 2008. To do this, we have carried out an in-depth analysis of the main statistical sources on migration flows from Spain's National Statistics Institute. Based on this analysis we have developed a typology of the "new emigrants", including returnees, re-emigrants and Spanish-born migrants. However, the article shows that these mobilities do not only result from a new phenomenon, since there is a continuity with earlier Spanish migration cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper argues that the well-known triadic relationship between kin state, resident state and national minority needs to take into account a fourth dimension: that of European institutions. This is illustrated through a study of relational identities on the EU’s Eastern border where the reconfiguration of ethnic relations followed the end of the iron curtain and EU accession. It considers two neighbouring ethnic minorities. One minority is part of the EU – the Belarusians in Poland – and the other is not part of the EU – the Poles in Belarus. The paper argues that the intersection of these four relational dimensions result in contrasting kinds of ethnic identification for the two minority groups leading to either fluidification or solidification under different circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Innovative approaches to citizenship emerged in the 1990s. Post-national theory suggested that European minorities no longer needed national citizenship because supra-national political structures such as the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) offered them protections. Denationalized citizenship held that universal human rights were now available at the national level too as the Council of Europe's member countries had to incorporate human rights principles within their own jurisdictions. New forms of claims-making among European Muslims were cited as evidence of this trend as religious claims, especially relating to the hijab, began to be made through human rights litigation. This paper demonstrates the limits of post-nationalism through a discussion of the outcomes of such claims. While European Muslims are indeed mobilizing around human rights, there is no evidence – at the level of litigation – that this has helped them to win recognition of their religious or cultural rights. This paper explores the reasons for this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite recent advances, critical areas in the analysis of European migration remain underdeveloped. We have only a limited understanding of the consequences of migration for migrants and their descendants, relative to staying behind; and our insights of intergenerational transmission is limited to two generations of those living in the destination countries. These limitations stem from a paucity of studies that incorporate comparison with nonmigrants -- and return migrants -- in countries of origin and which trace processes of intergenerational transmission over multiple generations. This paper outlines the theoretical and methodological discussions in the field, design and data of the 2,000 Families study. The study comprises almost 50,000 members of migrant and non-migrant Turkish families across three family generations, living in Turkey and eight European countries. We provide indicative findings from the study, framed within a theoretical perspective of "dissimilation" from origins, and reflect on its potential for future migration research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that immigrant civic activism, which may at first glance seem to focus on diasporic ties and ethnic community building, becomes often a lever for transcultural capital and transcultural community building. The study is explorative of new repertoires and forms of transnationalism among sub-Saharan African immigrant activists in Europe. The findings suggest that immigrant civic activism, even if limited in size, proposes new types of transcultural societal networks and new forms of transcultural expression. In the first part of the study I discuss the theoretical background of transnationalism in migration studies and propose the notions of transcultural capital and transcultural community as working concepts. The second part of the study concentrates on the qualitative analysis of life story interviews with sixteen sub-Saharan African immigrants in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An emerging consensus among scholars of Muslim political and social identity suggests that Western Muslims live out an anti-essentialist critique of identity construction. Considering this view, this paper examines a cross-national comparison of British Bangladeshis in London and Spanish Moroccans in Madrid that solicits the perceptions of working-class Muslim men. While the results indeed reaffirm respondents' concomitant relationships to a variety of identity paradigms, interview content demonstrates that subjects' multiplicity is complicated by their desire to meet – not reject – the essentialist standards of belonging to the identity paradigms discursively available to them. Rather than defiantly cherry-picking preferred characteristics of religion, ethnicity and nationality, individuals' responses suggest that they are trying to fulfil perceived standards of authenticity. Such a contention helps explain the prevalence of Western Muslims' expressed and well-documented ‘identity crisis’, suggests the enduring relevance of identity essentialisms, and more broadly, complicates post-modern conceptions of identity formation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the formulation of policy frames towards new minorities in France by analysing Lyon's membership of the European Commission's and Council of Europe's Intercultural Cities programme (ICP). Here, with culture accounting for 20% of Lyon's budget, emphasis is placed on the adoption of the Charte de Coopération Culturelle to use cultural institutions to implement difference-orientated policies. Critically, important issues emerge with this strategy. The effort to engage new minorities is hampered by significant apathy from cultural institutions in Lyon, and the limited geographical area of Lyon included in the ICP. Finally, institutions who engage with promoting interculturality co-opt existing organizations, with negative implications for the treatment of diversity in the city. This illustrates the problems with a European framework fostering a policy frame based on recognition for minorities in a context that has yet to fully embrace such policies at the national level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diverse schools have become the norm throughout much of what is considered the West. Many urban classrooms feature few white European children but are located in nations dominated by Eurocentric epistemologies and discourses that oppress minority students by devaluing their cultures. Most European scholarship fails to analyse cultures of whiteness in educational settings. This paper addresses this gap by documenting cultural discourses of whiteness infusing a diverse primary school classroom in Amsterdam. Discourses reflecting white cultural norms of order, time, cleanliness, and Western and Christian superiority dominated a classroom containing only one white Dutch child. These discourses contribute to diverse students' explicit racialization while promoting the supremacy of white Dutch culture. They are both assimilationist and exclusionary, suggesting that many students, because of their backgrounds, will never be considered fully Dutch. Findings are of relevance to all nations dominated by white cultures with large populations of students of colour. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper contends that exclusionary views towards out-group populations are formed along two dimensions: exclusion from the country and exclusion from equal rights. Data obtained from the European Social Survey (for twenty-one countries) reveal that objection to the admission of foreigners to the country is more pronounced than objection to the allocation of 'equal rights'. The data further suggest that objection to admission can be directed either at all non-nationals or only at ethnic and racial minorities. 'Total exclusionists' (i.e. support exclusion of all non-nationals) are more likely to support the denial of foreigners from equal rights than 'racial exclusionists' (i.e. support only exclusion of ethnic minorities). Multi-level analyses show that support for exclusion is also influenced by socio-economic characteristics of individuals (e.g. education, political orientation) and characteristics of their countries (e.g. size of the non-European population). The findings are discussed in light of sociological theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how we might best understand the potential establishment of a waqf (plural: 'awqaf), or Islamic charitable endowment, in London. Drawing on ethnographic and archival data, it considers the waqf space from four angles that emerged as significant during fieldwork: Islamic quality, temporality, communities of interest, and local relationality. In doing so, the article offers a detailed account of an example of an under-studied Islamic institution, as well as a portable framework for thinking about Islam and space in Muslim-minority contexts. It draws on these explorations to offer conclusions about the fieldsite, arguing that "Islam" is a major structure for shaping this particular space, but not a totalizing presence. The conclusion considers how this case study about space might relate to a debate within the Anthropology of Islam, as well as providing additional reflections on studying space and Islam in Europe relevant to the Special Issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the happiness trajectory of Muslims living in European countries following the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, using six rounds of the European Social Survey (ESS). We find a decline, and then a subsequent return to average happiness among the general Muslim migrant population relative to others after 9/11. However, a small subgroup of Muslims, young male Muslim immigrants from Middle East, report a persistent low level of subjective well-being. This may be seen as a potential source of a threat on integration of Muslims and hence social cohesion and peace in European countries. Our findings persist after controlling for perceived discrimination, migrant status, and demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, as well as fixed effects for year and country of residence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accommodation of Muslim religious practices is an increasingly salient political issue across Western Europe. Hitherto, most research has focused on how states accommodate Muslim religious practices, and sociological scholarship on workplace accommodation is still extremely scarce. This article fills the gap in the extant literature by presenting a qualitative analysis of over 300 requests for religious accommodation in the workplace in Belgium. The authors contend that turning the spotlight from state to workplace accommodation of Muslim religious practices allows the discovery of different answers to the “hows” and the “whys” of minority religious accommodation. Different than state accommodation, workplace accommodation is characterized by three “i”s: it is granted or refused on the basis of instrumental argumentations; it is regulated informally and resolved internally. This article proposes an institutionalist framework adapted to the world of work to explain the specific features of workplace religious accommodation of Muslim religious practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this contribution, I examine the Catholic political practice of "intercessions" (shtadlanut) as a means to control and manage relations between state power and Jewish communities by means of a privileged elite. While governmental techniques or mechanisms of minority management are only part of a broader question of majority-minority power relations, the theological-political roots of such "management" strategies are often overlooked because the problem is assumed to be secular. In my analysis of shtadlanut, I show how Jewish communities were internally divided between "good" and "bad", "managed" by the ruling powers, and homogenized. It is precisely this type of enforced collaboration with power, in combination with reduced agency and depoliticization, that I claim goes beyond the "Jewish Question". Rather, we must turn our gaze on Europe and consider how, and why, it continues to make 'others' into problems. By doing so, we can challenge the frame of the contemporary "Muslim Question". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe is comprised of at least 46 nations with an estimated population of at least 770 million, a black population of more than 7 million, over 90% of whom live in just 12 nations. The black population in each nation reveals distinct differences, including national, religious and ethnic origins and gender dynamics. They also have striking similarities in their ambiguous visibility and endemic vulnerability; in political and scholarly explanations; and in black people’s expressed racial identity and social mobilization. I explore the research implications of centering these similarities in our analysis; and suggest several insights from thinking about these striking similarities in Black Europe as a whole, rather than focusing primarily on individual nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research empirically approaches symbolic boundary making in the form of individual assent to selective immigration policy. Distinguishing two such types of boundaries, restriction based on immigrant skills and race/religion, we approach the antecedents of such preferences. Do economic or rather cultural concerns about immigration drive boundary making? We furthermore assess whether social boundaries in the form of integration and multicultural policies are of importance. The results obtained from the European Social Survey show that on the individual level, both forms of boundary making are mainly driven by cultural concerns. On the country level, net of several measures of diversity, integration policies dampen skill-related boundaries, while multicultural policies weaken the strength of cultural boundary making along race and religion. These findings expose the political embeddedness of processes of symbolic boundary making into the very policies that approach the respective type of boundary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the topic of return migration as it is understood and practised by different actors who engage with this theme, albeit from different perspectives. Return migration is paraded in policy debates as a triple-win scenario, bringing advantages to receiving states, countries of origin and migrants. Yet this article reveals how return migration is understood differently by policymakers in Senegal and Europe and by the migrants targeted by their policies. Interpretations are based on conflicting underlying assumptions of what return is, its benefits and its relation to transnational movement. Inspired by the discursive paradigm in political studies, this article utilizes interpretive tools to examine the structures that support and give meaning to understandings of return among institutional actors and migrants. It concludes that new theorization is needed to grasp the full complexity of return migration as a phenomenon that is marked by different temporalities and aspirations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article approaches two shortcomings in previous research on religiosity and prejudice: (1) the lack of cross-country comparative studies; and (2) a failure to consider any moderating effects of religious contexts. We examine whether the relationship between religiosity and anti-immigration attitudes varies depending on religious contexts in Europe, and we find two things. First, strongly religious people are on average less likely to oppose immigration than non-religious people. Second, different religious contexts moderate the religiosity–attitude relationship in that religious people in Protestant countries and in countries with a low proportion of majority adherents are more tolerant than religious people in Catholic countries and in religiously homogenous countries. State policies also matter in that religious people are more negative where the government favours the majority religion. This calls into question the taken-for-granted understanding of religiosity and out-group attitudes found in the USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Documenting the extraordinary potency and reach of the European backlash against multiculturalism, this essay provides a new theoretical model for explaining it. Rather than focusing primarily on demographic and institutional facts about Islamic immigration – such as education, wealth, participation and mobility – the author proposes a cultural-sociological approach that focuses on meanings and emotions as core issues for civil societies. As the demographic presence of Islamic immigrants has intensified, the anti-civil construction of Islamic qualities has led European masses, leaders and intellectuals, not only from the right but from the centre and left, to demand homogenizing assimilation. Representing public practices of Islam as threatening European democracy, newly restrictive citizenship tests have emerged alongside growing xenophobic political parties and newly threatening neo-fascist violence. Initially brought to Europe for economic and political reasons, the question has now become whether the children and grandchildren of Islamic immigrants can be incorporated into European civil society. The conflict is not over whether immigrants should be incorporated but over the grounds for doing so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article delineates a number of conceptual-normative, analytical and political concerns, characterized as matters of (1) ‘semantics’, (2) ‘scales’ and (3) ‘solidarities’, in the ways in which we can approach an understanding of the relationships between antisemitism and Islamophobia. As such it takes its cue from Goldberg's (2009) insistence that in addition to comparativist methodologies employed in the study of race and racism, we also need relational methodologies. That is to say that where the former compares and contrasts, the latter also seeks to connect. In so doing, the article harnesses the explanatory power of long-established organizing concepts within the study of race and racism, to explore how racial categories of religious minorities continue to be formed. Taking its cue from the introduction to this special issue (Meer this issue), this article explores what purchase the ideas of ‘cultural racism’ and ‘racialization’ can bring to bear on our conceptualization of each. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As opposed to the American and British reality, most European countries have adopted a position towards ethno-racial discrimination which could be summarized as attempting to fight 'racism without races'. This piece outlines the consequences of such a position from the normative, legal and political sciences points of view against the backdrop of an increasingly multi-ethnic continental Europe. Using the US as a comparator, the special issue summarizes a range of specific problems that race and ethnicity raise in the European context, such as categorization and discrimination against the Roma. In particular, we analyse whether and how race and ethnicity 'count' in legislation, jurisprudence and policies from the supranational to the local, and in the work of agencies entrusted with implementing anti-discrimination provisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Europe is unifying, it is also becoming more diverse, making multiculturalism one of the most hotly debated political issues in Western Europe. Minority citizens occupy an important place in the landscape of this challenging issue. Using the Eurobarometer 53 survey of European citizens, I look at the gap between Europeans who claim minority heritage and those who do not in support for multiculturalism in fifteen European Union member nations, taking into account percentage of extreme right-wing vote. This contextual factor has a persistent significant effect on the difference between minority and non-minority attitudes. High levels of support for extreme right-wing parties may have a polarizing effect, heightening awareness of personal heritage and making ethnic identity more salient in attitudes towards multiculturalism. This suggests an extension of group threat theory in which conceptions of what constitutes both a group and a threat can be created at the level of discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this special issue is to establish to what extent the place in which immigrants settle (namely the region or country) might determine the types of political activity in which they engage. More precisely, we aim to ascertain whether and for what reasons different forms of transnational political activity develop in the United States and Europe. To achieve this rather ambitious goal, through looking at a series of case studies from Europe and the USA we try to identify the full range of such activities, while at the same time noting various similarities in the actions undertaken by communities based in the same area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the field of ethnic and racial studies has increased dramatically in recent years, issues of methodology have to date remained relatively unexplored. Despite a long tradition of ethnographic research on racialized and ethnic minorities in North America and Europe, comparatively little has been written on what it means to research and write race ethnographically. This Introduction maps the key issues and controversies surrounding ethnography and race in Britain, the United States and mainland Europe, and traces the different anthropological and sociological/urban perspectives on the ethnographic method in relation to race and ethnicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]