Youth and ‘political spirituality’: the emergence of a sub-culture among new Muslims in the West?

Abstract

ABSTRACT Drawing on Foucault’s concept of ‘political spirituality’, I show how some new young converts to Islam interpret being Muslim within a framework that positions them as agents at the forefront of new social and political forces of change. My ethnographic research took place among young people who have embraced Islam or feel attracted to this religion in the Canadian province of Quebec, where Muslims constitute a small percentage of the population. Based on my findings, I examine cases of new Muslims who have appropriated Islamic beliefs and practices as a form of ‘counter-conduct’ that, recalling Foucault’s concept of ‘political spirituality’, conveys alternative ideological, social, and ecological orders, specifically in terms of social justice and equity. I show that their commitment derives from a specific understanding of social activism that relies on the inner work of the individual. Following the postulate of the British Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, I argue that youth offers a vantage point from which to grasp general social transformations. My interlocutors’ paths within or toward Islam are part of an original process of constructing a specific youth sub-culture within Western secular societies through which they introduce new patterns of community or sociality.