Dying your own way?
A comparative approach to Mortality as a religious identity marker in British Islam and British Judaism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.v8i2.241Keywords:
death – religious aspects, Islamic studies – rituals and practice, Jewish death customs, Jewish studies – rituals and practice, Muslim death customsAbstract
This article explores how two religious traditions, Judaism and Islam, confer meaning on the phenomenon of mortality, and it examines how their adherents seek to make sense of death in 21st century Britain. This research scrutinizes the religious identities of these two groups within the context of British multiculturalism, and it proposes approaching the manners in which death is perceived and experienced by Muslims and Jews as identity markers. The article argues that death issues contribute to the processes of collective labelling, self-perception and definition, through the perspective of religion. This inquiry will try to elucidate how the study of doctrines and practices to do with death can provide a meaningful platform for exploring identity boundaries. What does it mean to be a Jew or a Muslim in Britain today? Can the ways in which Jews and Muslims relate to mortality help us to answer this?
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References
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Sharot, S. 2011. “Judaism and Jewish Ethnicity: Changing Interrelationships and Differentiations in the Diaspora and Israel,” in E. Krausz and G. Tulea, eds, Jewish survival: The Identity Problem at the Close of the Twentieth Century. London: Transaction, 87–105.
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Zimmermann, C., and G. Rodin. 2004. “The Denial of Death Thesis: Sociological Critique and Implications for Palliative Care,” Palliative Medicine, 18.2, 121–28.
Alexander, J. 2001. “Theorizing the ‘Modes of Incorporation’: Assimilation, Hyphenation, and Multiculturalism as Varieties of Civil Participation,” Sociological Theory, 19, 237–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/0735-2751.00139
Anwar, M. 1998. Between Cultures: Continuity and Change in the Lives of Young Asians. London: Routledge.
Ariès, P. 1974. Western Attitudes toward Death: From the Middle Ages to the Present. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Beit-Hallahmi, B. 2007. “The Secular Israeli (Jewish) Identity: An Impossible Dream?,” in B. A. Kosmin and A. Keysar, eds, Secularism and Secularity: Contemporary International Perspectives. Hartford: Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture, 157–65.
Christiano, K., P. Kivisto and W. H. Swatos. 2008. Sociology of Religion: Contemporary Developments. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Gatrad, A. R. 1994. “Muslim Customs Surrounding Death, Bereavement, Postmortem Examinations, and Organ Transplants,” British Medical Journal, 309, 521–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.309.6953.521
Ghuman, P. A. S. 2003. Double Loyalties: South Asian Adolescents in the West. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
Green, L. 2010. Understanding the Life Course: Sociological and Psychological Aspects. Cambridge: Polity.
Heilman, S. C. 2000. Defenders of the Faith: Inside Ultra-Orthodox Jewry. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hutnik, N., and R. C. Street. 2010. “Profiles of British Muslim Identity: Adolescent Girls in Birmingham,” Journal of Adolescence, 33, 33–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2009.05.016
Jacobson, J. 1997. “Religion and Ethnicity: Dual and Alternative Sources of Identity among Young British Pakistanis,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 20.2, 238–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.1997.9993960
Kearl, M. C. 1995. “Death and Politics, a Psychosocial Perspective,” in H. Wass and R. A. Neimeyer, eds, Dying, Facing the Facts. London: Taylor & Francis, 3–23.
Kellehear, A. 1984. “Are We a ‘Death-Denying’ Society? A Sociological Review,” Social Science and Medicine, 18.9, 713–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0277-9536(84)90094-7
Mitchell, K. 2004. “Geographies of Identity: Multiculturalism Unplugged,” Progress in Human Geography, 28.5, 641–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.1191/0309132504ph510pr
Phinney, J. S., G. Horenczyk, K. Liebkind and P. Vedder. 2001. “Ethnic Identity, Immigration and Well-being: An Interactional Perspective,” Journal of Social Issues, 57.3, 493–510. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/0022-4537.00225
Robinson, L. 2009. “Cultural Identity and Acculturation Preferences among South Asian Adolescents in Britain: An Exploratory Study,” Children and Society, 23.6, 442–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1099-0860.2008.00179.x
Schneider, M. 1991. History of a Jewish Burial Society: An Examination of Secularization. Lewiston, New York, Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press.
Seale, C. 1998. Constructing Death: The Sociology of Dying and Bereavement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511583421
Sharot, S. 2011. “Judaism and Jewish Ethnicity: Changing Interrelationships and Differentiations in the Diaspora and Israel,” in E. Krausz and G. Tulea, eds, Jewish survival: The Identity Problem at the Close of the Twentieth Century. London: Transaction, 87–105.
Taylor, C. 1997. “The Politics of Recognition,” in A. Heble, D. Palmateer Pennee and J. R. Tim Struthers, eds, New Contexts of Canadian Criticism. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 25–73.
Verkuyten, M. 2005. The Social Psychology of Ethnic Identity. Hove: Psychology Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203338704
Walter, T. 1999. On Bereavement: The Culture of Grief. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Zimmermann, C., and G. Rodin. 2004. “The Denial of Death Thesis: Sociological Critique and Implications for Palliative Care,” Palliative Medicine, 18.2, 121–28.
Published
2013-11-26
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Articles
How to Cite
Dominguez Diaz, M. (2013). Dying your own way? A comparative approach to Mortality as a religious identity marker in British Islam and British Judaism. Fieldwork in Religion, 8(2), 241-257. https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.v8i2.241
