From "problematic" foreigners to "unproblematic" Muslims: Bosnians in the Swiss Islam-discourse

Abstract

This article discusses the role of religion amongst the Bosnian Diaspora in Switzerland. In order to analyse this issue, it makes a distinction between the Bosnian working migrants who have lived in Switzerland since the 1970s and the Bosnian war refugees who found asylum in Switzerland from the mid-1990s onward. Despite the distinction, the issue of ‘Refugees and religion’ and the issue of ‘Migration and religion’ will overlap. The main argument of this contribution lays stress on the changing role in the meaning of religious orientation within a group of migrants. Taking the example of the Bosnian Diaspora in Switzerland, this contribution demonstrates that refugees and migrants are not simply transferring their religion as a fixed recipe for the solution of daily problems in their changed circumstances. Very often different discourses, internal and external, and new constructs influence and contribute to give religion a new meaning. While emphasis on practice of religious and ritual conventions give migrants a cultural and religious continuity, new interpretations of religious norms and directives can also produce changes and polarizations within the same ethnic group and same religious community.