Public Spaces/Muslim Places:

مرکز و کتابخانه مطالعات اسلامی به زبان های اروپایی

منو

" Public Spaces/Muslim Places: "
JoAnn D’Alisera

Document Type	:	AL
Record Number	:	1063848
Doc. No	:	LA107477
Call No	:	‭10.1163/187254610X505673‬
Language of Document	:	English
Main Entry	:	JoAnn D’Alisera
Title & Author	:	Public Spaces/Muslim Places: [Article] : Locating Sierra Leonean Muslim Identity in Washington, D.C.\ JoAnn D’Alisera
Publication Statement	:	Leiden: Brill
Title of Periodical	:	African Diaspora
Date	:	2010
Volume/ Issue Number	:	3/1
Page No	:	93–109
Abstract	:	In this paper I explore the way in which Muslim space is produced in public venues to become a tangible medium through which Sierra Leonean Muslims living in Washington, D.C. reflect upon the harmonies and tensions of life in the city. I ask how secular sites such as work spaces, street corners and sidewalks are remade by a multiplicity of sanctifying patterns of action that are performed in conscious tension with the way American public spaces are normally perceived. I illustrate the complex ways that spatial practices that emplace the sacred onto mundane sites creates complex social fields in which Sierra Leoneans negotiate the social relations and practical knowledge of their world. In so doing, I show that sacred meaning and significance can coalesce in any place that becomes a site for intensive religious interpretation and thus essential locations of self-reflection and self-constitution in cities. In this paper I explore the way in which Muslim space is produced in public venues to become a tangible medium through which Sierra Leonean Muslims living in Washington, D.C. reflect upon the harmonies and tensions of life in the city. I ask how secular sites such as work spaces, street corners and sidewalks are remade by a multiplicity of sanctifying patterns of action that are performed in conscious tension with the way American public spaces are normally perceived. I illustrate the complex ways that spatial practices that emplace the sacred onto mundane sites creates complex social fields in which Sierra Leoneans negotiate the social relations and practical knowledge of their world. In so doing, I show that sacred meaning and significance can coalesce in any place that becomes a site for intensive religious interpretation and thus essential locations of self-reflection and self-constitution in cities.
Descriptor	:	cities
Descriptor	:	Muslim diaspora
Descriptor	:	Sierra Leonean
Descriptor	:	Washington, D.C
Location & Call number	:	‭10.1163/187254610X505673‬