Andalusian Encounters: Immigration, Islam, and Regional Identity in Southern Spain.

Abstract

This dissertation ethnographically explores the cooperative and conflictive encounters emerging between and among Muslim converts, Muslim immigrants, and non-Muslim Andalusians in Granada, Spain. It examines their varying narratives about the place of Muslims in Spain (both past and present), and the implications of these narratives for ongoing reconfigurations of Andalusian regional identity, and for the politics of inclusion and exclusion of the growing Muslim minority in Spain. At the core of these encounters is Andalusians' ambivalence about the place of Muslims in Spain. Drawing on Andalusia's nearly 800-year Moorish period, Catholic and secular Andalusians (and other Spaniards) sometimes showcase the region's Islamic legacy to encourage tourism, bolster demands for regional political autonomy, or proudly assert a unique historical identity. Yet many also suspect that over-identification with their Muslim heritage, or their new Muslim neighbors, may jeopardize their Christian-secular modernity and Europeanness. This tension engenders a complex dynamic in which Muslims are both carefully incorporated into Granada's city life, and excluded and marginalized. The dissertation analyzes these competing tendencies on the part of Andalusian Spaniards and examines how Muslim converts and immigrants experience and engage with them. It shows that the production of Andalusian regional identities and the creation of Muslims social place in Granada are deeply intertwined processes. Moreover, debates about Muslims' historical and current presence in Andalusia reflect racial zed and gendered discourses about religious and cultural difference that structure the relationships and encounters between and among Muslims and non-Muslims. The dissertation traces these debates through a variety of historical moments and social settings: from the incorporation and persecution of Muslims during crucial periods in the construction of the Spanish nation-state; to embattled historiography of the country's Muslim heritage; to contentious, present-day debates about Muslim conversion and immigration at NG0s, homes, mosques, teahouses, women's associations, and the streets. Ultimately, the dissertation argues that the encounters between and among Muslim and non-Muslim residents in the city of Granada challenge easy narratives about Europe as an increasingly homogeneous, secular, cultural-civilizational space, even as they reflect pressures to embrace that narrative within Andalusia and Spain.