Learning to become a good Muslim: transformative mo(ve)ments beyond gang engagement and radicalization

TY - CHAP

T1 - Learning to become a good Muslim

T2 - transformative mo(ve)ments beyond gang engagement and radicalization

AU - Mørck, Line Lerche

AU - Khawaja, Iram

PY - 2023/8/31

Y1 - 2023/8/31

N2 - This chapter explores the process of learning to become a good Muslim, analyzing the boundary community and relations that enabled a former gang leader, X, to move beyond gang engagement and religious radicalization. The chapter is based on collective, participatory practice research, utilizing mo(ve)ment methodology to grasp pivotal points of transformation in X’s life. We follow X’s movements beyond the brotherhood with his (former) fellow street gang members and explore the changes emerging through his engagement in Islam and a Muslim community. The dialectics of boundary community relations and transformative movements, analyzed over time, extend across a forensic psychiatric ward, a high security prison, Danish political agendas, our research collaboration and the Muslim community, X is part of. The analysis of the differentiated and transformative process of learning in X’s movement beyond radicalization and gang engagement challenges dominating Danish political discourses on ‘cross-over’ from gang engagement to radicalized Islamic practice – especially the common belief that Islam has a potentially negative and radicalizing influence on formerly criminalized youth.

AB - This chapter explores the process of learning to become a good Muslim, analyzing the boundary community and relations that enabled a former gang leader, X, to move beyond gang engagement and religious radicalization. The chapter is based on collective, participatory practice research, utilizing mo(ve)ment methodology to grasp pivotal points of transformation in X’s life. We follow X’s movements beyond the brotherhood with his (former) fellow street gang members and explore the changes emerging through his engagement in Islam and a Muslim community. The dialectics of boundary community relations and transformative movements, analyzed over time, extend across a forensic psychiatric ward, a high security prison, Danish political agendas, our research collaboration and the Muslim community, X is part of. The analysis of the differentiated and transformative process of learning in X’s movement beyond radicalization and gang engagement challenges dominating Danish political discourses on ‘cross-over’ from gang engagement to radicalized Islamic practice – especially the common belief that Islam has a potentially negative and radicalizing influence on formerly criminalized youth.

KW - Radikalisering

KW - Fællesskab

KW - gang disengagement

KW - gang exit processes

KW - Muslim community

KW - Forensic Psychiatry

KW - prison

KW - radicalisation

KW - mo(ve)ment ethnography

KW - Socialpædagogik

KW - Radikalisering

KW - Forskningsmetode

M3 - Book chapter

BT - New Spaces of Difference (working title)

A2 - França, Marina

A2 - Gomes, Ana

A2 - kousholt, Dorte

A2 - Lave, Jean

A2 - Mørck, Line Lerche

PB - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

ER -