Articles on religion
Okechukwu Onah, S. and J. Leman (2005). ‘Cosmological and Religious Fundamentals among Igbo Immigrants in Belgium: the Way Out of Segregation’, Social Compass, vol. 52, nr. 4, 513-527.
Abstract: In a society such as Belgium, most Igbo migrants of the 1990s soon became immigrants without papers. It was only after regularization campaigns (as in January 2000 in Belgium) that a significant number of them could be regularized to stay. This means that most of them had a very difficult time in the first years of their stay in Europe. This can best be described as a situation of anonymous liminality. That is the moment when Christianity and their cosmology enter their life in Europe. These help them in their self-discovery and re-appraisal, as well as in their social reconnection. Liminality, traditional Igbo cosmology, an ethnicity profoundly mitigated by Christianity, and transnationalism are the four basic ideas for an understanding of the life practices of Igbo migrants in a Western society since the 1990s.
Leman, J. (2003). ‘On Islam in Belgium and Western Europe: Its Official Represenation and its Internal Debate’, XIV International Amaldi Conference on Problems of Global Security, Atti dei Convegni Lincei, Rome, nr. 190, 223-232.
Leman, J. (2003). ‘Muslims and Christians. The urgency of dialogue and collective engagement’, Kolor, Journal on Moving Communities, Antwerp, vol. 3, nr. 1: 77-90.
Abstract: In a society such as Belgium, most Igbo migrants of the 1990s soon became immigrants without papers. It was only after regularization campaigns (as in January 2000 in Belgium) that a significant number of them could be regularized to stay. This means that most of them had a very difficult time in the first years of their stay in Europe. This can best be described as a situation of anonymous liminality. That is the moment when Christianity and their cosmology enter their life in Europe. These help them in their self-discovery and re-appraisal, as well as in their social reconnection. Liminality, traditional Igbo cosmology, an ethnicity profoundly mitigated by Christianity, and transnationalism are the four basic ideas for an understanding of the life practices of Igbo migrants in a Western society since the 1990s.
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Leman, J. (2000). ‘Minority Leadership, Science, Symbols and the Media: The Belgian Islam Debate and its Relevance for Other Countries in Europe’, Journal of International Migration and Integration, vol. 1, 3: 351-372.
Leman, J. (1999). ‘Religions, Modulators in Pluri-Ethnic Cities: An Anthropological Analysis of the Relative Shift from Ethnic to Supra-Ethnic and Meta-Ethnic Faith Communities in Brussels’, Journal of Contemporary Religion, vol. 14, nr. 2, 217-231.
Abstract: Within the framework of interpretation of the relationship between Muslims and Christians we can distinguish four levels. At the roots of the opposition lie elements of a social nature, worded in cultural terms, legitimised by a selective ethnocentric reading of the past, and mobilizing for “new” and “pure” values in the future. Nevertheless, there are two very important concrete challenges for cooperation: the multicultural society and world peace.
Leman, J. (1999). ‘The sanctity of Sicilian home and friendship changing into religion-based community formations: The city of Caltanissetta at the end of the 20th century’, in Cultuur, etniciteit en migratie. Liber Amicorum Prof. Dr. E. Roosens, Leuven, Acco, 17-28.
Leman, J. (1998). ‘The Italo-Brussels Jehovah’s Witnesses Revisited’, Social Compass, vol. 45, nr. 2, 219-226.
Abstract: In 1976 a survey was conducted among two Italo-Brussels congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses and the results compared with a number of autochthonous Dutch-speaking and French-speaking control groups. Towards the end of 1996 the author put the same questionnaire to the same two Italo-Brussels congregations as part of a wider survey about allochthonous religious and social networks in Brussels. The results show how the Italo-Brussels community of Jehovah’s Witnesses has evolved from being a specific movement, which took advantage of first-generation immigration, into a community in which kinship – as a source of support and as a symbolic frame of reference – and a traditional family ideology are very much in evidence, but which henceforth will be increasingly sustained, on the one hand, by a second generation who have been born and brought up in the ‘Truth’ and, on the other hand, by a network that is based on kinship and social proximimity.
Leman, J. and M. Renaerts (1996). ‘Dialogues at different institutional levels among authorities and muslims in Belgium’, in Shahid, W.A.R. & P.S. van Koningsveld, eds., Muslims in the Margin. Political responses to the presence of islam in Western Europe. Kok: Pharos, p. 164-181.
Leman, J. (1979). ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses and Immigration in Continental Western Europe’, Social Compass, vol. 26, nr. 1, 41-72.
Résumé: Face à sa situation de transplanté, l’immigré peut s’orienter de diverses manières: se replier sur son passé; vivre dans le présent (avec le risque du mimétisme et du conformisme) ; s’orienter vers un avenir précis. A partir d’une recherche empirique menée parmi les Témoins de Jéhovah immigrés et autochtones en Belgique, l’auteur cherche à expliquer le pourquoi de l’adhésion croissante des migrants à ce mouvement religieux. Sa thèse consiste à dire que le Mouvement de la Tour de Garde permet au migrant une possibilité de réponse à son problème d’orientation: faire un ‘choix d’avenir’ qui consolide fondamentalement son passé au moment où il traverse une crise.