 Shifts
of meaning – Muslim discourses of reform and the practice
of everyday life in postcolonial Mombasa
Kai Kresse
This project investigates the internal discursive dynamics of
urban Muslim communities along the Kenya Swahili coast, particularly
in Mombasa. Thereby, it focuses on fields of social tension that
are ranked around the presence of discourses of Islamic reform
in everyday life. Two aspects are central to this investigation.
Firstly, whether in how far (translocally triggered) shifts of
meaning are detectable in ideology and the practice of everyday
life; and secondly, to what extent discourses of Islamic reform
are being adapted, reformulated, and thereby (re-)located for
a specific regional context, due to translocal tensions.
The research will proceed ethnographically, and seeks to make
use of case studies to carve out the internal perspectives and
life-world of local social agents. Thereby, a historically sensitive
approach to the discursive embeddedness and practical contexts
of everyday life is used to assist in identifying and understanding
any such shifts of meaning, and in analysing them as translocal
phenomena.
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