This chapter focuses on women members of the Sunnī-dominated national organization Sweden's Young Muslims (Sveriges Unga Muslimer, SUM) and some of its local youth associations in different Swedish towns, to argue that involvement with these associations is increasing Muslim women's engagement with mosques and other venues for acquisition of Islamic knowledge. Illuminating the continuous challenges to the women's presence in mosques and their wider public activism the chapter examines how these women defend their right to exercise religious authority while supporting the traditional sources of Muslim authority in the public sphere. It analyzes how the women reinterpret the Islamic texts to change their daily lives as well as their position within both the Muslim community and Swedish society as a whole. The chapter emphasizes that in more informal situations, backstage among peers, the women put gender on the agenda, initiate reflexive deliberations, and test alternative norms and practices.

In Sweden, women establish religious authority as they are appointed leaders in Muslim youth associations. Their commitment is intertwined with identity politics, leading their activism out beyond the mosques and classrooms and into civic centres and television studios.

Att många religiösa ledare i moskéer ger uttryck för kvinnoförtryckande idéer innebär inte att alla gör det. I min undersökning ingår kvinnors berättelser om hur de i moskén erbjudits just det som samhället borde garantera, nämligen skyddat boende och stöd för dem som vill komma bort från ett våldspräglat hem, skriver Pia Karlsson Minganti.

Based on interviews with young persons in two national Muslim youth organizations in Europe, this article examines how young Muslims negotiate between the cultural customs of their societiesof origin, their everyday experiences in Europe, and the global Muslim public sphere. In seekinga universal “true” core of Islam, these young persons create their own version of Islam, a “fourthspace” in which they reinterpret the authoritative source texts of Islam in light of personal diasporicexperiences in Europe. This reinterpretation becomes particularly pertinent in the context of planningfor future marriage, where they jointly construct new understandings of Islam to argue for inter-ethnic marriages and later age at marriage, to argue against coercion in arranged marriages, tooppose polygyny and to portray the stigmatization of divorce as counter to the true spirit of Islam.

Nella ricerca accademica si presta sempre più attenzione al fenomeno del raggiungimento dell’età adulta tra i musulmani di seconda e terza generazione presenti in Europa. Quest’articolo tratta in particolare dei membri delle associazioni islamiche giovanili esistenti in Svezia e in Italia. Presenterò qui un mio nuovo progetto di ricerca, finalizzato allo studio delle trattative sulla pianificazione dei loro matrimoni: con chi, quando, dove e come. Le trattative in questione riguardano l’idea che i giovani hanno del matrimonio islamico, idea che si è venuta formando nel quadro delle emergenti sfere pubbliche dell'Islam. Inoltre, nelle negoziazioni sono coinvolti membri appartenenti a famiglie transnazionali e a network etnici, che hanno orientamenti religiosi diversi e diverse motivazioni nella pianificazione matrimoniale. Poiché i giovani musulmani vivono in Europa, i loro matrimoni sono influenzati anche dagli atteggiamenti e dalle condizioni della società che li circonda. Strutturato in forma di indagine comparata, questo progetto si basa su interviste di carattere qualitativo e osservazioni partecipative tra i giovani attivisti musulmani di due paesi europei: Svezia e Italia. La questione centrale delle trattative di matrimonio, è qui presa in esame a partire da ideali, desideri, obblighi e condizioni dei singoli giovani. Tale questione è intesa come un punto di osservazione strategico per l’esame degli aspetti significativi del cambiamento in corso. Da questo punto di osservazione, si ha modo di vedere come le azioni delle persone nella quotidianità si colleghino a processi societari di globalizzazione e alla riorganizzazione delle relazioni di genere.

This article focuses on Sisters’ Shelter Somaya in Sweden, an organization unique in its claim to be a women’s shelter by and for Muslim women, and in its combining of Islamic and secular feminisms. Examining the organization’s self-presentations, the author argues that there is, however, an ongoing shift from an emphasis on its Muslim profile to a dissolution of the very same. Looking into potential loss in the process (for clients, activists, allies, and feminism at large), the analysis draws on current research on anti-Muslim intolerance and normative secularism. The concept of the “Muslim woman” is employed to illustrate the stereotyping that continuously associates Muslim women with “victims” inhabiting shelters rather than capable “managers”. Intersectionality is pointed at as an emic strategy adopted by Somaya to overcome division, but also critically analysed as a consensus-creating signifier that hinders diversity. Thus,the article raises the increasingly important issue of the relationship between religion, gender, and feminism in the post-secular turn, and the author calls for critical self-reflection and creative affirmation in the interaction with heterogeneous others.

This dissertation is an analysis of interviews with and observations among young women in Sunni Muslim youth associations in today’s Sweden. The aim is to understand the women’s possibilities to act as individuals, as women and as members of religious/ethnic minorities. Postcolonial and gender theories are herewith combined to point at tensions among such social positions as well as between said theoretical perspectives. The examination of the women’s agency is performed through an analysis of their negotiations on gender, at the intersection with religion, “race”/ethnicity, age and generation. As indicated in the title of the book – Muslima (feminine form of the Arabic word “Muslim”) – the women are involved in complex processes of positioning, representation and lived experience. This ethnographic study of nine individuals has been aptly conceived in order to supply useful insights about such complexity, challenging the sweeping simplification of the women’s statements that often takes place in one-sided debates. Accordingly, the study illustrates empowering as well as hindering conditions for the women in an Islamic revivalist movement. It shows how they as pious activists gain authority in relation to non-Muslims and “cultural” Muslims such as family members. At the same time it offers insights about how the ethics of honor and shame are reproduced in relation to dominant gender orders in Sweden, former home countries and the global Islamic revival. Thus the women’s local diasporic experiences are stressed, along with transnational and global aspects, without which the women could not be adequately understood. Ultimately the women’s claim for recognition as subjects with agency is discussed in relation to contemporary debates on multiculturalism, identity politics and cultural citizenship.

Snart tjugo miljoner muslimer lever i Europa, och runt 300 000 i Sverige. Knappt fyra procent av Sveriges befolkning är muslimer, och bara en liten del av dem utövar sin religion, är praktiserande. Men alla muslimer, oavsett grad av religiositet, behandlas ungefär på samma sätt. De möts av fördomar, okunskap och hat. Detta konstaterande låter journalisten och författaren Kerstin Gustafsson Figueroa bli utgångspunkt för en antologi -För Guds skull. Muslimer i Sverige -fylld av personliga samtal med människor bakom stereotypierna.

Pia Karlsson Minganti lämnar ett bidrag till den etnologiska traditionen att studera uppåt och kritiskt granska olika former av beslutsfattande och myndighetsutövning. I sin text undersöker hon ett utdraget myndighetsärende där de skiftande turerna belyser synen på statliga bidrag till muslimska ungdomsorganisationer.

In the first half of the twentieth century, only a limited number of women were involved in Swedish ethnological research at an advanced academic level. One of them was Märta Hedlund (1913–1944), who was part of the academic circle around the prominent professor of regionalethnology, Sigurd Erixon, at the University College of Stockholm. Sadly, she died young, before she was able to complete her work. This article recalls Hedlund as a pioneer in the study of peasant trade and modes of enculturation within the rural families of such traders. We argue that Hedlund, with her orientation towards American social anthropology and economic history, managed to introduce topics and perspectives that would come into vogue only decades later. Furthermore, a rereading is offered of her scant biographical data and professional output through the lens of intersectional gender theory, to provide a complementary view of why, for so long, her work was forgotten.

Becoming key symbols for diversity in Norden, young Muslims are struggling for recognition as full citizens while reclaiming their senses of multifaceted identities and belongings. This paper examines young women who act and speak as ‘Muslims’ in Sweden, either by engaging in Muslim youth organizations or through actively engendering public visibility through frequent media appearances. Drawing on ethnological fieldwork, the paper illuminates how these young women are affected by various politics of visibility and representation. The analysis revolves around three central arguments: 1) there has been a shift from adult Muslim men and women converts as public front-figures, to the young ones now inhabiting this representative position; 2) particularly young women are involved in such ‘identity politics’, which leads beyond the frames of their local youth associations and into TV studios and other mass media; 3) these women’s fashion looks are being developed and made public in close relation to mass media.

Många muslimska kvinnor utsatts för ett omfattande förtryck med våld som yttersta sanktion. Somliga skulle säga att alla muslimska kvinnor utsatts för förtryck. Återigen andra skule säga att överhuvudtaget alla kvinnor i majoriteten av världens kulturer i någon form är förtryckta. Debatten om kvinnors möjligheter och rättigheter har förts upp på den samhällspolitiska agendan och attraherar allt fler deltagare. I svensk samhällsdebatt ägnas den muslimska slöjan som symbol för repression ett relativt stort utrymme och engagerar människor på såväl akademisk, politisk som vardaglig nivå. Detta innefattar svenskar utan egna erfarenheter av utövande av islamiska påbud, svenska konvertiter utan erfarenheter av att leva i muslimska samhällen och muslimer vars erfarenheter har formatt dem att aktivt ta ställning mot slojan. I denna uppsats vill jag, utan normativa förtecken, låta två muslimska kvinnor med ett till synes mer positivt eller neutralt förhållande till slöjan komma till tals. Syftet ar att undersöka deras relation till slöjan och hur denna eventuellt förändras i en svensk kontext. Genom att ge kvinnornas berättelser om deras egen praktik och erfarenhet utrymme hoppas jälva och med andra informanter hade andra perspektiv på denna komplexa frågeställning hamnat i fokus.

This roundtable session focus on religious and social change as well as democracy and political culture, startingfrom the role of youth in these processes. The role of religion in young people’s participation is a key theme inthe cross-disciplinary network “youth and religion” connected to the Impact program. Participation here includesboth citizens’ “vertical” capacities to make their voices heard and influence decision-makers in the political system(e.g. via elections or civic organizations and social movements) and their “horizontal” capacities to communicateand cooperate with other people (within society at large or certain associations/communities). The participants ofthe session will present influential theories and methodologies used to study participation among youth within theresearch disciplines they represent (i.e. sociology of religion; theology; ethnology; political science). This will befollowed by a joint discussion of how these theories and methodologies have approached religious involvement witha particular focus on youth’s participation in politics, civil society as well as social media and the internet. The aim ofthe session is to look for common themes and new issues that can guide contemporary studies of participation in thefield of youth and religion. The session is open to conference participants interested in the issues discussed.