Lecture: Muslims in the Czech Republic

September 9, 3:00pm - 4:00pm
Mānoa Campus, Tokioka Room (Moore Hall 319)

Tuesday, Sep 9, 3:00pm

Tokioka Room (Moore Hall 319)

"Muslims in the Czech Republic: Building Communities in a Post-Socialist Country"

Daniel Topinka, Department of Sociology and Cultural Anthropology, Palacký University, Olomouc, Czech Republic

The lecture deals with the presence of Muslim immigrants in Czech society. Muslim immigrants have become a part of Czech society, especially since 1989. They have been founding organizations, establishing themselves in public, attempting to de-privatize religion, and entering the public space. The Muslim community serves as a very appropriate example for migration theory, due to the following: construed strangeness of Islam, presentation of an alternative social-political project, the importance of collective identity, and the variability in the modes and mechanisms of the integration of social factors. The paper introduces key features of Muslims’ stay in the Czech Republic. The text is based on long-term research of the Muslim “community”, which was started in 2006. Since 2013, a research team has been working on the project “Islam in the Czech Republic: The establishment of Muslims in the public space”. The project deals with the entrenching of Muslims in the public space. The lecture will take into account the specifics of Muslims in comparison with Europe and the USA.

Dr. Daniel Topinka, Ph.D., studied sociology and religious studies at Brno Masaryk University. He defended his doctoral thesis on the topic of “Integration of Muslims into Czech society” at Olomouc Palacký University in 2008. He works as an assistant professor at the Department of Sociology and Andragogics of the Olomouc Palacký University‘s Faculty of Art. His studies are concerned with social inclusion, sociology of migration, integration of migrating and ethnic groups, and sociology of religion.


Event Sponsor
Muslim Societies in Asia and the Pacific Program, Mānoa Campus

More Information
(808) 956-8891, msap@hawaii.edu

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