Islamism and the Crucible of Immigration

Islamism in the Crucible of Immigration is an attempt to understand through the study of the grand affair that immigration offers certain Muslim individuals and sometimes groups—in varying degrees—serious drifts toward different strands of Islamism. The dynamics of immigration and their transformative ardor could be perceived here as both complex structures and processes at work that require considerable study to grasp their deeper implications and far-reaching consequences. Within the relationships of immigration and certain expressions of Islamism, stand certain aspects that need to be explored so as to grasp the course of events, the dynamics and the situations charting that phenomenon. The central argument of this project is that the best way to understand the transformative drive of immigration in this field is not to look at it as an instance in time but as a commencing event that embodies an intensification of what could be professed as some sort of consciousness that defines both the self and the counter-self. Broadly speaking, there are different approaches to the study of Islamism. Scholars interested in the emergence of Islamist movements (political Islam), since the 1960s, have generally utilized a paradigm emphasizing and segmenting these movements according to their regional locations. The issue of immigration and its relationship to the development of these movements has been overlooked. Hence, the previous research leaves many questions unanswered, and scholars disagree about how to explain certain aspects within the rise, development, transformation, and, perhaps, the disintegration of some of these movements. This project addresses a glaring gap in this field.