Sense of community among Muslims in the Brazil–Paraguay border: narratives of belonging and generational differences

ABSTRACT

The so-called ‘Triple Frontier’—the border between Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina—is the ‘host society’ of an important Muslim community, composed mainly of Lebanese immigrants and their descendants born in Brazil and Paraguay. In less than two decades, Shi’i and Sunni Arab Muslims created mosques, religious centres, a cemetery, and three schools. Mosques, schools, and religious centres are spaces for the production of a sense of community. The institutional discourse of these entities emphasises the connection between religion and community origin, considering Islam as part of ‘Arab culture’. Taking generational differences into account, this article aims to analyse the narratives of plural identity expressed in the meanings attributed to the immigrants’ self-identification as Muslims. Based on fieldwork in the South American border area, this work aims to shed light on the way in which immigrants and their descendants reinterpret their religious belonging, informed by the new experience of living in multi-religious societies.     

Borders, Boundaries, and Blessing: Mission as Converting Hypocrites into Sinners

Abstract :  Rather than seeing inequity on different sides of borders as the result of God having blessed some people more than others, it must be considered the consequence of sinful and unjust systems and structures to which we all contribute. According to Jesus' teaching and practice, only as we see ourselves as sinners in need of help and healing can we fulfill the mission of serving as God's instruments to promote justice and equity on all sides of the borders and boundaries that exist in our world.     

Borders, Globalization and Eucharistic Hospitality

Abstract :  This article relates the sacrament of the Eucharist to world migration and hospitality. To weave these themes is to find borders all around the Eucharistic table/altar, borders often unnoticed but borders that define economic, social, cultural, sexual and class divides. Using the notion of  borderless borders  and engaging Jacques Derrida's notion of hospitality, the author tries to expand the possibilities of the Christian demand to welcome people in and around and through the eucharistic sacrament as people gather with one another to be with one another and issue this constant call of welcome to whomever wants to come and eat.     

PETER HARRISON,LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN,AND THE PROBLEM OF PRE‐MODERN RELIGION

Peter Harrison's Gifford Lectures demonstrate that the modern concepts of “religion” and “science” do not correspond to any fixed sphere of life in the pre‐modern world. Because these terms are incommensurate and ideological, they misconstrue the past. I examine the influence and affinities of Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy on Harrison's study in order to argue that Harrison's project approaches Wittgenstein's. Harrison's book is a therapeutic history, untying a knot in scholarly language. I encourage Harrison, however, to clarify how future scholars can progress in their study of phenomena once termed “scientific” or “religious” without succumbing to these same mistakes.     

Young People's Deliberations on Geographic Mobility: Identity and Cross-Border Relocation

This paper considers how social identities may shape group members' spatial behaviour. Specifically, it reports a small-scale interview study (n  =  30) conducted with young people (17 years of age) living in a Scottish town close to a national border (with England). This border has very little physical presence. However, the psychological significance of a Scottish identification remains strong, and we investigate the ways in which national identities are implicated in young people's deliberations about their future geographic mobility throughout the United Kingdom. Our data suggest that national identity-related considerations are not always salient in our participants' deliberations. Yet, when national identity is salient and mobility is framed in national terms, we find our participants are often cautious about relocating to England. However, our data also suggest that the ways in which a national framing of self and mobility may be consequential is itself diverse.     

Just open borders? Examining Joseph Carens' open borders argument in the light of a case study of recent Somali migrants to the UK

This essay examines Joseph Carens' open borders argument in the light of a case study of recent Somali migrants to the UK. It argues that, although arguments for significantly more open borders are compelling, they must take into account existing domestic injustice in receiving states as well as existing global injustice.     

Psychoanalysis and Diplomacy Part II: Large-Group Rituals

This paper focuses on the predominant repetitive activities in which a large group engages to maintain and/or repair its identity. These repetitive activities constitute large-group rituals and can be divided into two general categories: (1) rituals that occur within a society that do not involve an active relationship with a contemporary other large group; and (2) rituals that occur through and depend upon the interaction with an opposing or enemy large group, usually a neighbor. Because others are used as reservoirs for unwanted parts, both at individual and group levels, and are needed to support aspects of identity and a shared sense of sameness, the first type of ritual may also include reference to shared images of others from the large group's past. They therefore may not be strictly domestic or indigenous. Furthermore, the intensity and content of both types of rituals occur across a spectrum depending on whether a large group is at peace, in a hot conflict with an enemy group, or otherwise destabilized due to crises.     

FEDERATIVE GLOBAL DEMOCRACY

Abstract: In this essay a set of principles is defended that yields a determinate allocation of sovereign competences across a global system of territorially nested jurisdictions. All local sovereign competences are constrained by a universal, justiciable human rights regime that also incorporates a conception of cross-border distributive justice and regulates the competence to control immigration for a given territory. Subject to human rights constraints, sovereign competences are allocated according to a conception of global democracy. The proposed allocation scheme can accommodate substantial local autonomy while at the same time ensuring that everyone has a voice in the political decisions that affect his or her interests. The relevant class of affected interests is fully specified. Relevant affects are of two kinds: those that impose norms of governance on individuals, and those that impose external costs on them. The favored sense of "an external cost" is developed and defended.     

Christ's Love and Borders

This article is a keynote address given at the Global Ecumenical Theological Institute (GETI) held in Karlsruhe, Germany, August-September 2022, on the theme “Christ's love (re)moves borders” and organized in conjunction with the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches. The article argues that around the world, political borders are being cemented by populist nationalisms even as pandemics, capital flows, and climate change ignore them. If Christians are to resist such ideologies, they must recover a robust incarnational theology and their fundamental identity as members of the worldwide body of Christ. Simultaneously, even as borders between people are being reinforced, the border between people and machines is blurred by transhumanist and posthumanist agendas. Such paradoxes will continue to abound in an intellectual landscape where what is distinctively human is obscured by technological hubris and philosophical naïveté.