Thesis (M.A.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Ill., 1999. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 101-103).

Thesis (M.A. in Latin American Studies)--Vanderbilt University, Aug. 2006. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Köln, 2005.

Thesis (M.A.)--Columbia Biblical Seminary and Graduate School of Missions, Columbia, S.C., 1989. / Abstract. Bibliography: leaves 102-106.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 274-285). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (H. Sc. D.)--University of Sydney, 2008. / Title from title screen (viewed Nov. 13, 2008) Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Health Sciences to the Faculty of Health Sciences. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print form.

No description available.

This thesis studies the experiences of Albanian and Bosnian Muslim immigrants in Canada in the post-9/11 period. It draws upon a boundary-making framework and employs qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate the destigmatization strategies of Balkan Muslims, as well the national and cultural repertoires that enable and facilitate their utilization. The study yields several important findings. The quantitative findings show that Albanian and Bosnian Muslim immigrants in general show lower levels of attachment to religion compared to other Muslim immigrants. Also, many members of these ethnic groups appear to have resorted to the strategy of distancing and/or disidentifying from Muslim identification and/or faith in favour of identifying as irreligious as a way of coping with rising Islamophobia in Canadian society. The qualitative findings show that the move towards distancing/disidentification is due to a dissonance between the cultural repertoires of the meaning(s) of “Muslim” in participants’ homeland versus that of the host society. Discursively, the process of distancing/disidentification occurs mostly by drawing religious and, relatedly, moral and value boundaries from other, mostly non-European and racialized Muslims. Importantly, despite having been exposed to instances of Islamophobia, participants overwhelmingly reported that their communities have not been significantly affected by anti-Muslim sentiments. I argue that the Albanian and Bosnian Muslims’ lack of religious signs, bolstered by their “whiteness” and society’s general unfamiliarity with Muslims and the Balkans, have greatly contributed to the perceived lack of religion-based discrimination. This study thus demonstrates that Islamophobia is to a significant extent an issue of racism, and that, relatedly, “race” continues to be a weighty marker of differentiation in Canadian society, where skin colour and appearance function as a religious sign.

This dissertation addresses what it means to be a Muslim and an American and the challenges that some ethnically different American Muslims face in constructing American Islamic social identities. While practitioners of Islam profess anti-racist ideologies, the American Muslim community has a complex underlying hierarchy with sharp divisions between African-American Muslims, Euro-American Muslims, and various immigrant Muslim communities. In addition, the tendency to favor traditionalist interpretations of Islam, and the reduction of Arab experience as the primary way to experience Islam are conflicts internal to the Muslim community as well. This has created a division in the Muslim community between traditionalist and modernist approaches to Islam. The result of these hierarchies is that certain ethnic groups and religious sects are delegitimized by more powerful ethnic groups and sectarian communities, and separatist ideologies about Islam result. The goal of this research is to examine how American Muslims negotiate their identity both in the public sphere and within the Muslim community from which many often feel a sense of separation. In addition, I will review historic and current social strategies used by different ethnic constituents of American Muslims to define themselves as a unique and authentic sector of Islam. I begin by discussing the interrelations between Muslim groups in St. Louis then explore how stereotyping by both local and national media have contributed to divisions between ethnically and racially different groups of Muslims. I also explore the use of social media as a means of building community alliances and found that Caucasian Muslim converts were most active with other Caucasian and immigrant Muslims, which I later argue is part of an assimilation process that many Caucasian converts experience as part of the conversion process. I argue that this is very different than the experience of African American Muslims, most of whom do not change their culture as a result of religious conversion. I also investigate how sectarian differences impact racial segregation within Islam in an American context. I conclude that immigrant Muslims use alliances with Caucasian Muslims to boost their social standing, taking advantage of the effects of white privilege. The result is that the racial hierarchy responsible for creating white privilege is mirrored within a religious community that staunchly advocates for color-blind, non-discriminatory inclusion resulting in racial disempowerment, segregation, disenfranchisement, and black inferiority among American Muslims.

O Islã é a religião que mais cresce em número de fieis no mundo. Ao longo da História os estudos orientalistas construíram representações acerca dos muçulmanos e de suas práticas que contribuíram para alimentar uma relação de estranhamento desenvolvida entre Ocidente e Oriente ainda durante a Idade Média. Essa relação de estranhamento foi intensificada após a atuação de grupos terroristas que agem desde o século XX utilizando a religião muçulmana como justificativa de seus atos violentos. Observa-se um crescente interesse das diferentes mídias ao se constatar o aumento de produções relacionadas ao tema. Estudantes e professores estão sob influência destas percepções canonizadas sobre os muçulmanos e suas práticas. Neste estudo há o objetivo de compreender as representações elaboradas sobre essa religião no ensino de História. Para isso, analisam-se as representações sobre o Islã e os muçulmanos presentes em duas coleções de livros didáticos de História, destinadas ao Ensino Médio e distribuídas pelo Plano Nacional do Livro Didático (PNLD). Destacou-se, neste trabalho, a análise dos conceitos ligados à religião e sua apropriação pelo livro didático. A partir disto, foi elaborado um vocabulário de conceitos para o estudo da História do Islã e dos muçulmanos, com o objetivo de contribuir para os estudos sobre o tema e o trabalho docente na sala de aula, sendo este o produto que acompanha esta dissertação. / Submitted by Ana Guimarães Pereira (agpereir@ucs.br) on 2017-03-08T17:21:19Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Jéssica Pereira da Costa.pdf: 2091327 bytes, checksum: 77b2061aefb6a0b0f8660e6f3c32e39e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-03-08T17:21:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Jéssica Pereira da Costa.pdf: 2091327 bytes, checksum: 77b2061aefb6a0b0f8660e6f3c32e39e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-08 / Islam is the religion that grows the most in number of believers in the world. Over the History the western studies construed representations about the Muslims and their practices that contributed to feed a relation of strangeness developed between the West and the East during the Middle Age. This relation of strangeness was intensified after the action of terrorist groups that act since the 20th century using the Muslim religion as the justification of their violent acts. It is observed a growing interest of the different mediums in the increase of the productions related to the theme. Students and professors are under the influence of these canonized perceptions about the Muslims and their practices, in this study there is the objective of understanding the representations elaborated about this religion in the History teaching. To this end, the study analyzes the representations about Islam and the Muslims present in two collections of History textbooks, destined to High School and distributed by the Plano Nacional do Livro Didático (PNLD). It was highlighted, in this work, the analysis of the concepts connected to the religion and their appropriation by the textbook. From that, a vocabulary of concepts was elaborated to the study of the Islam and Muslims‟ History, with the objective of contributing to the studies about the theme, as the product that accompanies this dissertation.