John Richard Bowen

"This book casts a great deal of light on the events leading up to the French law banning Muslim headscarves in schools. Bowen takes us through the strange and often distorted debate that culminated in the decision to pass a new law. He shows the roots of this decision in French history and politics, with a marvelous eye for nuance and a sensitivity to the many positions which clashed in the debate. The result is a work that not only is tremendously important for an understanding of France today, but that also has relevance for similar debates that are now in train in many other Western societies."--Charles Taylor, Northwestern University "This book, ostensibly an account of the French debates on Muslim headscarves in public schools, is a thoughtful and deep probe into French political culture, the legacy of colonialism, and the difficulty for a state that refuses to recognize communal differences in the public sphere to accommodate millions of Muslim immigrants. It is a timely, learned, and provocative work."--Stanley Hoffmann, Harvard University "France's decision to ban religious signs in public schools was quite puzzling, if not downright crazy, to many outsiders. In Why the French Don't Like Headscarves, John Bowen manages to make sense of the apparent madness by carefully tracing the disparate threads of the issue, in particular by replacing the debate within the specific French context of the long, complicated relationship between Church and State. This book should be read by all those who seek a fair and comprehensive analysis of the headscarves decision and of the broader question of the place of Muslims in contemporary French society."--Sophie Meunier, Princeton University, author of The French Challenge: Adapting to Globalization "This extremely important book brings us a fresh and innovative analysis of its subject. What is new is that it is not by a French scholar--who would be immersed in the heated passions of the issue--but by an American anthropologist who decodes for us the chronology and the political and philosophical foundations of this particular debate."--Malika Zeghal, University of Chicago Divinity School, author of Les islamistes marocains

Islam, the State, and Public Space

Why the French Don't Like Headscarves

An Approach to the Anthropology of Religion

Religions in Practice

John R. Bowen

This powerful, accessible new study explores the contributions that anthropology has made to the study and understanding of Islam.

A New Anthropology of Islam

This book looks at how Muslims in Indonesia struggle to reconcile radically different sets of social norms and laws.

An Anthropology of Public Reasoning

Islam, Law, and Equality in Indonesia

Jan Willem Duyvendak

Anita Hardon

Nicolas Dodier

This book examines a range of critical concepts that are central to a shift in the social sciences toward 'pragmatic inquiry', reflecting a twenty-first century concern with particular problems and themes rather than grand theory. Taking a transnational and transdisciplinary approach, the collection demonstrates a shared commitment to using analytical concepts for empirical exploration, and a general orientation to research that favors an attention to objects, techniques, and practices. The chapters draw from broad-based and far-reaching social theory in order to analyze new, specific challenges, from grasping the everyday workings of markets, courtrooms and clinics, to inscribing the transformations of practice within research disciplines themselves. Each contributor takes a key concept, and then explores its genealogies and its circulations across scholarly communities, as well as its proven payoffs for the social sciences, and, often, critical reflections on its present and future uses. This carefully crafted volume will significantly expand and improve the analytical repertoires or toolkits available to social scientists, including scholars in sociology or anthropology, and those working in science and technology studies, public health, and related fields.

John Richard Bowen

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