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Doctoral thesis
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English

Convivial politics of belonging: young muslims' narrative construction of real-and-imagined spaces in superdiverse Vienna and Zurich

Contributors

Novak, Christoph

Directors

Gianni, Matteo; Rosenberger, Sieglinde

Award

Dissertation Award for Research on Migration (2018), Austrian Academy of Sciences

Defense date

2020-11-27

Abstract

Western cities exhibit a great paradox. Powerful discourses construct diversity as leading to social disintegration, yet conflicts and struggles along racialised divides are the exception. I ask how racialised young Muslims living in such diverse cities (Zurich, Vienna) construct their belongings to different social collectivities in conversation with me. How do national, linguistic, religious belongings surface in the participants' narratives? Drawing on social constructionist and -ivist epistemologies, I argue for using psychosocial constructionism to assess social constructions of reality. Methodologically, I combine photo- and biographical narrative interviews to gather rich data, balance the power differential between researcher and researched and control for researcher bias. Contrasting Vienna and Zurich highlights the effects of urbanities on convivial belongings, shows that the meaning of social collectivities vary in different spaces, that people make spaces convivial by questioning the relevance of fixed, separating identities and that certain spaces promote conviviality more than others.

Keywords

  • Islam in Europe
  • Vienna
  • Zurich
  • Narratives
  • Conviviality
  • Belonging
  • Religious Youth
  • Photo Interviews

UNIGE affiliation entities

Funding

  • Autre - DOC-Fellowship of the Austrian Academy of Sciences

Citation (ISO format)

NOVAK, Christoph. Convivial politics of belonging: young muslims” narrative construction of real-and-imagined spaces in superdiverse Vienna and Zurich. Doctoral Thesis, 2020. doi: 10.13097/archive-ouverte/unige:150421

Main files (1)

Thesis

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Technical informations

Creation

14/02/2021 20:30:00

First validation

14/02/2021 20:30:00

Update

04/04/2025 13:19:44

Status update

14/03/2024 08:01:36

Last indexation

13/05/2025 18:35:46
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