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Positivism and Muslim Minority Law in Europe: Rethinking Legal Pluralism

Dib, Farah LU (2014) RÄSM02 20141
Department of Sociology of Law
Abstract
How can we reconcile Muslim minority law with state law in the European
Union and its member states?
This essay seeks to analyse and dismantle the concepts of ‘secular’ law and ‘religious’ minority law in the context of the European Union and within the theoretical framework of Sociology of Law. France and the UK shall serve as locations for contextualised comparison, assisting us in making sense of the political and legal developments that are currently taking place in the region.
In a period of continued political unrest and dramatic upheavals in several countries in the Middle East and North Africa, one central question; how can belief systems such as ‘Islam’ accommodate for demands for ‘democracy’ in the modern state, is more... (More)
How can we reconcile Muslim minority law with state law in the European
Union and its member states?
This essay seeks to analyse and dismantle the concepts of ‘secular’ law and ‘religious’ minority law in the context of the European Union and within the theoretical framework of Sociology of Law. France and the UK shall serve as locations for contextualised comparison, assisting us in making sense of the political and legal developments that are currently taking place in the region.
In a period of continued political unrest and dramatic upheavals in several countries in the Middle East and North Africa, one central question; how can belief systems such as ‘Islam’ accommodate for demands for ‘democracy’ in the modern state, is more relevant than ever. Will the products of ‘new’ states, whether the result of internal restructurings or external pressures, uphold liberal rights such as privacy of the individual, legal equality and minority rights, or will they seek to enforce a single approach to law and perhaps even Islam? And in the context of the modern European state – recipient of an influx of
migrant groups from other parts of the world – how is it possible to reconcile the personal laws of growing migrant communities with a liberal tradition of secular state law?
As xenophobic forces are growing dangerously strong across Europe, the matter can no longer be ignored and we ought to seek to meet claims from populist parties that migrant communities are incompatible with ‘European’ and ‘Western’ culture.
With Sociology of Law as the starting point, this essay proposes to invalidate the positivist claims that continue to dominate the discipline, and re-evaluate the concept of pluralism from a critical and post-modernist point of view. Positivists claim that law is defined and operates in line with predictable and measurable patterns in society. Instead, challenging positivist hegemony, it is herein proposed that failure to acknowledge the capacity of embodied and socially constructed subject categories such as ‘women’ and ‘men’ when locating the law ignores the diversity of legal frameworks that define the modern state and its population.
Finally, exploring multiple ways in which diverse legal systems can co exist in the public realm, through redefining legal pluralism, a re visioning of the narratives of ‘secular’ and ‘religious’ laws in Sociology of Law and an alternative way of understanding the boundaries and methodological approaches of the discipline is proposed. (Less)
Popular Abstract
Sociology of Law; secular law; religious minority law; pluralism; positivism; EU; feminism; critical; theory; post-modern theory; France; UK
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author
Dib, Farah LU
supervisor
organization
course
RÄSM02 20141
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
post-modern theory, France, UK, critical theory, feminism, EU, positivism, pluralism, religious minority law, Sociology of law, secular law
language
English
id
4461597
date added to LUP
2014-06-30 10:53:38
date last changed
2014-06-30 10:53:38
@misc{4461597,
  abstract     = {{How can we reconcile Muslim minority law with state law in the European
Union and its member states?
This essay seeks to analyse and dismantle the concepts of ‘secular’ law and ‘religious’ minority law in the context of the European Union and within the theoretical framework of Sociology of Law. France and the UK shall serve as locations for contextualised comparison, assisting us in making sense of the political and legal developments that are currently taking place in the region.
In a period of continued political unrest and dramatic upheavals in several countries in the Middle East and North Africa, one central question; how can belief systems such as ‘Islam’ accommodate for demands for ‘democracy’ in the modern state, is more relevant than ever. Will the products of ‘new’ states, whether the result of internal restructurings or external pressures, uphold liberal rights such as privacy of the individual, legal equality and minority rights, or will they seek to enforce a single approach to law and perhaps even Islam? And in the context of the modern European state – recipient of an influx of
migrant groups from other parts of the world – how is it possible to reconcile the personal laws of growing migrant communities with a liberal tradition of secular state law?
As xenophobic forces are growing dangerously strong across Europe, the matter can no longer be ignored and we ought to seek to meet claims from populist parties that migrant communities are incompatible with ‘European’ and ‘Western’ culture.
With Sociology of Law as the starting point, this essay proposes to invalidate the positivist claims that continue to dominate the discipline, and re-evaluate the concept of pluralism from a critical and post-modernist point of view. Positivists claim that law is defined and operates in line with predictable and measurable patterns in society. Instead, challenging positivist hegemony, it is herein proposed that failure to acknowledge the capacity of embodied and socially constructed subject categories such as ‘women’ and ‘men’ when locating the law ignores the diversity of legal frameworks that define the modern state and its population.
Finally, exploring multiple ways in which diverse legal systems can co exist in the public realm, through redefining legal pluralism, a re visioning of the narratives of ‘secular’ and ‘religious’ laws in Sociology of Law and an alternative way of understanding the boundaries and methodological approaches of the discipline is proposed.}},
  author       = {{Dib, Farah}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Positivism and Muslim Minority Law in Europe: Rethinking Legal Pluralism}},
  year         = {{2014}},
}