Comparative Migration Studies volume 5 , Article number: 8 Cite this article. Metrics details. Moving beyond approaches that emphasise the influence of national ideologies and transnational frameworks on the governance of religious diversity in Western Europe, recent scholarship has underlined the importance of analysing the impact of concrete institutional settings such as hospitals, schools and prisons on the public incorporation of religious minorities.
Building on this approach, the present article analyses the emergence of Muslim prison chaplaincies in three German federal states by focussing on how framing strategies of state- and religious actors accommodate the national state-church framework and prison-related norms. The article thus shows how national ideologies of diversity regulation and prison norms are mutually shaped in the process of the local governance of Islam. The comparative perspective of the article highlights subnational variations regarding actor constellations and strategies and thereby emphasises a multidimensional process of negotiating the national regime of diversity governance.
With an increasingly diversified religious landscape in Europe, the accommodation of faith-related claims of minorities has come under a central spotlight of public debate and an important research concern. The relation between Western European states and Muslim communities in particular constitutes a topic of intense controversy.
Certain religious symbols and practices, such as the headscarf, halal food, or the construction of minarets, have proven to be focal points for discussing state responses to Muslim demands for public recognition. It argues that inclusion of religious newcomers should be analysed as a complex interplay between national-legal and political ideologies and concrete institutional rules, practices, and boundaries in settings such as schools, hospitals, or prisons.
In fact, these locations are characterised, or so the argument goes, by distinctive institutional logics that may have a greater impact on practices of accommodation than do national ideological or legal frameworks. Following this approach, I have suggested in this article that both dynamics β national legal and institution specific β are actively shaped and articulated by collective actors negotiating the terms of diversity governance at the meso level.
