The Muhammad cartoons conflict and transnational activism

Abstract

There are many ways to approach the case of the Muhammad cartoons conflict. This article proposes looking at the conflict as an instance of transnational activism. The conflict started out as a Danish issue — prompted by a Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, and its publication in September 2005 of a series of satirical cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad — but in a matter of months the controversy escalated into a full-blown transnational phenomenon. The aim of the article is not to develop new theory or provide detailed empirical support for the arguments, but rather to indicate a new research agenda on transnational activism. The author hopes that scholars of religion, culture and politics, that is, the core readership of Ethnicities , might find inspiration in such an exercise. The article identifies and addresses four challenges posed by the conflict to the study of transnational activism.