Investigating the South-South Dimension of Modernity and Islam: Circulating Visions and Ideas, Intellectual Figures, Locations

by Helmut Buchholt (Editor), Georg Stauth (Editor)

" The second volume of the Yearbook of Sociology enters into a new terrain in the analysis of relationships which are grouped around the tensions between Islam and the South-South dimension of cultural exchange. The editors, Georg Stauth and Helmut Buchholt, propose with this volume to limit in a first step of analysis the South-South dimension, first, to the intermediary role of Islam as a pattern of cultural exchange between various regions of the Non-Western World. More specifically, here, the perspective focusses on the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Second, like with Islam, the circulation of mundane ideas, such as Feminism, Ghandism, Socialism, the Non-alignment movement and Postmodernism contributed to the gradual shaping of patterns and ideas of cultural reconstruction in the national cultures, exemplified in this volume with intellectual developments, Islamic and non-Islamic, in Egypt, Bangladesh, Iran and Malaysia. Third, local groups and cultural settings are largely effected by cross-religious and interregional discourse in a South-South dimension, and this is studied, here, with examples drawn from Turkey, Sudan, Southern Thailand and the Indonesian Moluccas. These exchanges stand in an ambiguous relationship to colonial and post-colonial structures, however, they also reach far beyond any open expected form of Western domination. At the same time the South-South dimension contributed to bring forth modes of modernity which in itself exceed the visions and ideas of local traditions, Islam and the West all alike. Table of 1 Speculations on South-South Connections, Modernity and Islam, Mona Abaza; 2 Behind the Islam in Malaysia and Tunesia, Asma Larif-Beatrix; 3 Local Islam and Islamization between the Middle East and Southeast Asia, Georg Stauth; 4 From the Cape to to Transnational Networks and communal Conflicts, Roman Loimeier; 5 Satyagraha. Ghandi's Influence on an Egyptian Feminist, Synthia Nelson; 6 Islam and Perspectives from Autonomous Social Science and Occidentalism, Syed Farid Alatas; 7 Islam and National Reconstruction between the Middle East and Southeast Three Intellectual Figures, Mona Abaza; 8 The Secular Author and the Religious Rushdie, Nasrin and the Muslims in Bangladesh, Habib Khondker; 9 Female Agency and Networking in a Sudanese Village, Ruth Klein Hessling; 10 Publicising Religion, Differentiation and Alevits between Berlin and Anatolia, Refika Sariönder; 11 Visions, Claims, and re-negotiating social space for Muslims in Patani/Southern Thailand, Alexander Horstmann; 12 Sowohi and The Guardien of ""Islam"". The understanding of local Islam on Tidore/North Maluku/Indonesia, Lany Probojo. Helmut Buchholt and Georg Stauth are sociologists and teach at the University of Bielefeld. "

240 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2000