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Living Sectarianism: Negotiating Religious Identity among Contemporary Christians in Egypt
Abstract
The existing studies on sectarianism in the Middle East have heavily contextualized it as geopolitics with a focus on the Sunni-Shia divide. They have emphasized the significant roles of political elites in changing political circumstances and indicated that political actors play a crucial role in determining sectarian dynamics. Such concentration often narrowly associates sectarianism with tensions, conflicts, and violence, along with its relation to the process of expanding political influence through competition in the Middle East based on sectarian differences. Consequently, there is a limited understanding of how these sectarian orders influence the interactions among ordinary people along religious lines. This study on living sectarianism examines how contemporary Christians in Egypt, in the aftermath of the Arab Uprisings in 2011, negotiate their religious identity by applying the two major theoretical and analytical lenses of lived religion and intersectionality. Lived religion allows us to view people’s religious narratives and practices beyond their institutional walls. Intersectionality helps us see more inclusive ways of how power and privilege operate in society and how the existing social order is being reproduced. Shifting attention from political elites to lay Coptic Orthodox Christians, this theoretical paper broadens the focus to lived and dynamic aspects of the ways that religious minorities negotiate their identity in everyday life. I define living sectarianism as meaning-making processes through daily interactions among ethnic and religious communities. Using examples from my ethnographic research conducted in Cairo and comprising over 50 in-depth interviews with Coptic Christians, this study explores how these individuals make sense of their inter-sectarian relations with their Muslim counterparts, examining variations influenced by social class, gender, and geography.
Discipline
Sociology
Geographic Area
Egypt
Sub Area
None