On Being Muslim in Switzerland: Engaging with diversity in public discourses, education, and spiritual care. / Muslimischsein in der Schweiz: Der Umgang mit Vielfalt in öffentlichen Diskursen, Bildung und Seelsorge [FS 24]

Diversity has become a recurring issue in public discourse. However, Islam is rarely associated with diversity, and when it is, the discussions usually focus on the supposed incompatibility of Islamic practices and convictions of pluralistic societies. This seminar approaches diversity within an interdisciplinary framework. In the first part of the seminar, we will explore how diversity is mobilised within public discourses relating to Islam. The aim is to understand the ways in which this notion is essentialised when it refers to groups identified as Muslim, while at the same time questioning the strategies used by these groups to emancipate themselves from this form of reification. In the second, more practice-related part of the seminar we will focus on two current issues in public discourse: education and spiritual care. By critically questioning the deficit framing which Muslim pupils are subjected to in Swiss schools, we pose the question of resources which enable them to navigate life in a social framework marked by diversity. Regarding the field of Spiritual Care, the pluralization of peoples religious and cultural backgrounds opens the question on how Spiritual Care has to adapt to these developments.