Several scholars have linked the growth of transnational Arab TV in the Middle East over the past decade to a rise in transnational Muslim and Arab political identification at the expense of national political identity. However, a theoretical context for understanding how media exposure may influence political identification in the Middle East at an individual level of analysis has been lacking...

where between ethnocentrism and literalism, especially in the case of Islam, have brought little distinctive anthropological analysis to bear successfully on the practical realities and political ideologies of religions. In addition, the popular assertion that certain ethnic groups that have had conflicts over centuries will continue to fight with one another is but an idea fuelled by numerous ...

In response to the rise of the biopolitical state, which derives power from its ability to “make live” and “let die,” some scholars have argued that death itself can serve as a form of resistance to biopower. As virtual worlds become increasingly intertwined with the physical world, the concept of in-game death can have rhetorical force to resist both physical and virtual biopower. This paper d...

I n this article I want to address a number of issues thrust into the open by different manifestations of Islamist politics and the intersection of religion and identity politics in Western societies. This intersection should be read in conjunction with the emergence in Muslimmajority societies of forms of political activism that ground themselves in Islamic doctrines and invoke religious tradi...

Although Foucault adamantly refused to make moral pronouncements or dictate moral principles or political programs to his readers, his work offers a number of tools and concepts that can help us develop our own ethical views and practices. One of these tools is genealogical analysis, and one of these concepts is "biopower." Specifically, this essay seeks to demonstrate that Foucault's concept o...

Research with White participants has demonstrated religious intergroup bias; however, religious identity may be different for Black Americans. Only religiously conscious Black Christians demonstrated a preference for Christian targets over Muslim and Atheist targets. Future research should consider what factors result in a person becoming conscious of other’s religion.

This paper looks at how Muslim women with an Iranian background and now living in Canada perform their identity through wearing the hijab. This was achieved by observing the behavior of six members of this community on Facebook using Erving Goffman’s stigmatization theory. The observation reveals that women who wear the hijab are more likely to identify themselves as Muslim-Canadian while those...