Beschreibung
This lecture addresses the linkage between mobility, imagination and placemaking in the migratory experience of Tajiks working in Dubai. It traces how through work (trade business, social work, emotion work) Tajik men and women try to make a place in Dubai’s cosmopolitan urban spaces and thereby re-reflect and re-articulate Islam and Muslim identity. Adopting a translocality perspective, the lecture scrutinizes the role religion plays in mobilizing for and experiencing migration to the Gulf und thus illustrates how Tajik migrants engage in a desired piety. Thereby they construct, mediate, and market the ‘idea’ of Dubai as a Muslim place. (Speaker’s abstract)