Call for papers : Balkan Islam and Balkan Muslims European Perspectives : Diasporic Trajectories, Institutions, Identities

Since the labour migrations of the 1960s and 1970s, the displacements caused by the post-Yugoslav wars, post-socialist mobilities, and contemporary student and professional circulations, Muslim populations from the Balkans, from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Sandžak, have settled durably in France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Benelux, the Nordic countries, and the United Kingdom. They now constitute one of Western Europe's oldest autochthonous Muslim diasporas, yet they remain comparatively invisible in public and academic debates on European Islam, which tend to be structured around other regional reference points.

This conference proposes to place these communities at the centre of the analysis. It seeks to examine the modalities of their settlement, the organisation of their religious and associative lives, the transnational ties they maintain with their societies of origin, and the ways in which they articulate their European belonging in a context shaped by the securitisation of Islam and the reconfiguration of secularism regimes. The historical legacies of Balkan Islam, its Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian and Yugoslav layers, provide the necessary backdrop to this reading, without being its main object.

5 mai 15 juin 2026
8h09

THEMATIC TRACKS


The formation and historical development of Islam in the Balkans
Theology and the specificities of the interpretation of Islam in the Balkans
Islamic thought and its contemporary developments
Plural identities: being Muslim, Balkan and European
Migratory trajectories and diasporic reconfigurations: labour, war, post-socialism, contemporary mobilities
Institutions, places of worship and Balkan Muslim associations in Western Europe
Transnational circulations: imams, religious knowledge, ritual practices, diaspora economies
Generations, languages, transmission and religious practice in diasporic contexts
Women and youth in Balkan Muslim communities across Western Europe
Relations with host societies: institutional recognition, secularism, pro- and anti-Muslim discourses
The experience of war, genocide and collective memory


The conference brings together contributions from history, sociology, anthropology, religious studies, political science and law. Both comparative approaches across Western European countries and localised case studies are welcome.


SUBMISSION GUIDELINES


Proposals (200-300 words, in English or French), together with a short biographical note, should be sent by 15 June 2026 to: akgonul@unistra.fr and dzsusko@gmail.com. Notification of acceptance: 15 July 2026. 

Funding (travel and accommodation) may be awarded, with priority given to doctoral candidates and early-career researchers.


CONVENERS AND SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE


Conveners: Dževada Garić and Samim Akgönül (University of Strasbourg).
Scientific committee: Samim Akgönül, Dževada Garić, Ségolène Plyer, Khalid Rabeh.

 

Click here to access the call for papers.