Faith, Flight and Foreign Policy: Effects of war and migration on Western Australian Bosnian Muslims
This article examines the nexus between war, religion and migration through a series of qualitative interviews with Bosnian Muslim humanitarian entrants to Western Australia. By utilising a three-tiered model for assessing religiosity, the interviews reveal that a substantial number of participan...
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| Format: | Journal Article |
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2016
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/77865 |
| Summary: | This article examines the nexus between war, religion and migration
through a series of qualitative interviews with Bosnian Muslim humanitarian
entrants to Western Australia. By utilising a three-tiered model for assessing
religiosity, the interviews reveal that a substantial number of participants
placed a greater emphasis on Islam during the Balkan conflict. The way in
which individual religiosity was expressed upon resettlement in Western
Australia was largely determined by pre-migration religiosity and postmigration contact with other Muslims. In particular, migrants with a low level
of Islamic knowledge tended to internalise the values and ideas of more
conservative Muslims upon arriving in the receiver-nation. Meanwhile, those
with a well-developed pre-migration understanding of Islam tend to resist
outside influence and continue their original beliefs and practices. The
findings demonstrate that conflicts at the state level frequently precipitate
psychological crises of identity at the personal level; this in turn has an effect
on the cultural and political landscape of migrant receiving nations. |
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