Panel: ENTANGLED ENCOUNTERS: MATERIAL AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATIONS OF RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES IN EUROPE



647.6 - WHO BELONGS? MIGRATION, RELIGION, AND MUSLIM POSITIONINGS IN MULTIRELIGIOUS SPACES

AUTHORS:
Bärtlein S. (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin ~ Berlin ~ Germany)
Text:
This presentation examines how German discourses on "migration" and "religion" shape the positioning of Muslim actors within multireligious spaces in Berlin. Multireligious spaces, including open-house events at religious institutions, interreligious initiatives, and organized multireligious encounters, are often framed as fostering social cohesion, particularly in the context of rising right-wing populism in Germany. However, they are not detached from state-driven discourses on migration, religion, and the governance of minorities. Within these contexts, Muslims are frequently constructed simultaneously as religious minorities and as "migrants," often in subtle or implicit ways. As a result, Muslims in multireligious spaces must continually navigate and respond to the discursive frameworks in which they are situated. The presentation investigates how migration discourses shape Muslim participation in multireligious spaces, and how Muslim actors engage with, negotiate, and resist dominant political narratives within a presumed secular German context. In doing so, it draws on the concept of "affective citizenship" (Ayata 2019; Fortier 2010), which highlights how states may symbolically exclude even legal citizens from full emotional and affective belonging, thereby casting them as "incompatible" with the nation state. Building on this framework, the presentation explores how Muslim individuals respond to narratives that mirror broader migration discourses in Germany, situating these dynamics within Europe's "Muslim question" (Norton 2013). It further examines how the entanglement of race and religion (Topolski 2018) contributes to the "migrantization" of Muslims in multireligious spaces. At the same time, it demonstrates how such processes of "migrantization" and othering are actively challenged by Muslim actors. Empirically, the analysis draws on selected examples from two years of ethnographic observations conducted in multireligious spaces in Berlin.