Abstract
Although Muslim groups in the population comprise an integral component of Austrian society, the public image of Islam tends to be generally negative. In the meantime, there are now significant successor generations of Muslims who, in contrast with their parents’ generation, have other religious orientations and positionings, and have become hybrid, heterogeneous individuals with ‘multiple-home’ attachments living in Austria. Nonetheless, in public discourse, they appear as a homogeneous group. Our study is based on a change in perspective, shifting front and center the religious orientation of these persons as seen from their own perspective and experiences. The findings of our study on Muslim diversity in Austria show just how differentiated, complex, ambivalent, and hybrid the everyday religious practice of individuals directly on the ground is or can be. In the following article, the focus is on a form of open religiosity that is practiced above all by members of the successor generations.
Highlights
The Muslim population in Austria has increased markedly in recent decades
The focus is on a form of open religiosity that is practiced above all by members of the successor generations
Despite the long history of Islam and existence of Muslims living in Austria, and their pronounced presence in the media and the discourses associated therewith, the actual life realities of the Muslim population have largely received little attention to date
Summary
The Muslim population in Austria has increased markedly in recent decades. An extrapolation in 2017 estimated their number at some 700,000 (Goujon et al 2017, pp. 7, 13). Our analysis builds here on the findings of other research dealing with the forms of religious behavior by members of the successor generations in the German-speaking area Worth noting in this regard are studies by Klinkhammer (2000), Ornig (2006), Khorchide (2007) and Gennerich (2016) that deal with the distinctive character of religiosity as practiced by younger Muslims and have shed light on deviations from religious practice common among an older Muslim demographic. For example, there can be different causative factors for why a previously non-religious young person turns increasingly toward Islam, or why a young woman born and raised in Germany within a secular family environment suddenly chooses to wear a headscarf (hijab) against the will of her parents In his ethnographic study on the Islamic association Milli Görüş in Germany, Werner Schiffauer shows that intergenerational developmental processes do occur inside a family, but rather that within one and the same religious organization, depending on the generation, different approaches can predominate toward religion. We examine open religiosity by illuminating its characteristic features, likewise by drawing on statements by interviewees, and by analyzing the socio-demographic backgrounds of the believers here under study
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