Divergent Trajectories Islam and Ethnicity in Switzerland

Abstract

The relations between Islamic revival and ethnic allegiances are all too often presented as being in opposition. Islamic identity - and this dimension is very present in Islamic discourse - is by its very nature dedicated to transcending the centrifugal tendencies of ethnicity, of nationalism or of any form of segmentarism. In the face of ideological discourse, the social imaginaries of the interested parties are contradictory. Arab nationals in Switzerland affirm an engaged Muslim identity by a rejection of national and cultural ethnicities, while the Turks affirm their Muslim identity by borrowing the paths of ethnicity. These divergences from the trajectory of 'Islamization' have less to do with cultural differences between places of origin than with forms of social change that have diversely affected these two populations of Muslim origin since their settling on Helvetic territory.