Fraternal Critique

Reviews / Votes

"A well-crafted and persuasively written account of Muslim community in twenty-first-
century France. . . . Through razor-sharp analysis of fine ethnography and astute reading of French public discourse, Wesselhoeft redraws anthropological debates on Islam and secularism in France. Wesselhoeft trenchantly observes how the state regulation of communalism does not simply constrain Muslim life but rather offers the grounds to establish a particular kind of Muslim communalism. . . . Fraternal Critique is sophisticated, and yet accessible to undergraduates who can stage their own debates about the possibilities and limits of critique." * Religious Studies Review * "In Fraternal Critique, [Wesselhoeft] shows how dissatisfaction can serve as a solid ethical method for building community and solidarity. The book underscores the beauty of internal dissent within the French Muslim community and how its very possibility has been fragilized by recent evolutions of French secularism. An acute observer of France and a close reader of French social sciences, Wesselhoeft offers an important contribution to the study of French Islam at a time when widespread 'anxiety over claims of Muslim collectivity' (p. 134) has made it increasingly difficult to grasp with clarity and rigor the actual fabric of French Muslim community life." * Politics, Religion, and Ideology * "In her wide-ranging and clearly conveyed ethnographic work, Wesselhoeft has succeeded in drawing a comprehensive picture of the efforts of a young generation of Muslims to build new institutions of learning in the greater Paris region. She deftly traces ways in which these young Muslims anchor their piety in lively debates about individual rights and women's autonomy and in doing so gives the lie to misleading rhetoric labeling Muslims as 'communalists.'" -- John R. Bowen, Washington University in St. Louis "A gifted ethnographer, storyteller, historian, and ethicist, Wesselhoeft brilliantly explores in this book how Muslims in France organize and respond to state-supported hostility and racism. Her central concept, 'fraternal critique,' allows for an analysis of debates within social and political movements that does not reduce argument to infighting or division. Instead, Wesselhoeft suggests that it is in the arguing itself that solidarity is practiced and community constituted." -- Juliane Hammer, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill