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Articles by Fernande Pool

Modern Asian Studies, 2020

This article examines the implications of the growing presence of the Tablighi Jamaat in Joygram,... more This article examines the implications of the growing presence of the Tablighi Jamaat in Joygram, a Muslim-majority village in rural West Bengal, India, drawing on fieldwork conducted between 2011 and 2013. The analysis of reformist Islam as a moral regeneration movement embedded in dharma and catalysing an alternative modernity contributes to the scholarship on lived experiences of Islam, modernity, and ethics. The Tablighi Jamaat in Joygram gains popularity in a political economic context of moral degradation and marginalization, which inspires engagements with globally resonant modern and anti-modern models of the self enveloped in the practice, discourse, and performance of Islamic reformism. These models mutually interact and conflict with locally particular practices and exclusionary categorizations. On the village level, the drive towards modernity ensues in conflicts over moral personhood and social exchanges. On the societal level, the modern aspirations of Joygrami Tablighis go beyond piety to ‘good culture’ and respected citizenship, and are embedded in anti-modern critiques of the hegemonic categorizations of the secular nation-state by which they are nevertheless confined. It is suggested that reformist Islam should not be misunderstood as pre-modern, anti-secular, or secular, but might better be called 'post-secular’ because it encompasses those ideologies in vernacularized forms on the basis of a different ideal conception of society. Islamic reformism in Joygram may resonate with moral regeneration and reactionary movements elsewhere. This analysis of the Tablighi Jamaat demonstrates the potential challenges social movements face in the transition to alternative modernities.

European Journal of Development Research, 2019

Drawing on long-term ethnographic research with Muslims in India, this article suggests that reli... more Drawing on long-term ethnographic research with Muslims in India, this article suggests that religion should not (only) be understood as a sub-category of development but as an integral part of the meta-ontology based on which one should engage with development initially. Value-driven development implies a normative view of society, and a ‘more human’ society is at the core of worthwhile development. For the research participants, their ontological conceptions (notions of what being human means) and the ethical autonomy to deliberate on a normative view of life and society are embedded in the Islamic dharma. To approach religion as only a sub-category in an otherwise secular development framework marginalises these, and probably many other, religious life experiences and ontological notions from the outset. Instead, secular and religious ontologies should be considered at par in an inclusive dialogue on worthwhile development.

The Religion Factor, 2018

Does piety threaten secularism? In this post, Fernande Pool examines the recent Netherlands Insti... more Does piety threaten secularism? In this post, Fernande Pool examines the recent Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP) report on Islam in the Netherlands, challenging the implicit bias contained within its use of ‘religion’ and ‘secularity’.

Fair Observer, 2017

The article draws on ethnographic research to explain why a view of pious Muslims as potential te... more The article draws on ethnographic research to explain why a view of pious Muslims as potential terrorists is a mistake that may have counterproductive effects, and may risk human rights abuses, especially when this view is becoming implicit in governmental CVE programs.

'Secularism isn't happening', sighed a Bengali Muslim man, dressed in meticulous white Islamic dr... more 'Secularism isn't happening', sighed a Bengali Muslim man, dressed in meticulous white Islamic dress, with a wild beard and an Islamic cap. With these words he encapsulated what so many rural Muslims in West Bengal conveyed to me over two years of field research. Their political, social and economic marginalisation demonstrates that secularism isn't working properly in India. Whenever I asked why secularism isn't happening, they'd answer that the problem is a lack of dharma (usually translated as religion) in both private and public life.

Fernande Pool attended the FaithXchange Annual Conference held at Goldsmiths, University of Londo... more Fernande Pool attended the FaithXchange Annual Conference held at Goldsmiths, University of London. In this report, she reflects on three papers which engage with the public sphere and secularism from empirical, methodological and theoretical perspectives respectively.

Fernande Pool explains how villagers in West Bengal are responding to delays in panchayat electio... more Fernande Pool explains how villagers in West Bengal are responding to delays in panchayat elections and related violence, and what impact these may have on the public’s faith in democracy.

PhD Thesis by Fernande Pool

This doctoral research explores the complexity of ethical life of the marginalized Muslim minorit... more This doctoral research explores the complexity of ethical life of the marginalized Muslim minority in the Indian secular state, drawing on 23 months of ethnographic fieldwork in a village in West Bengal. The thesis revolves around the observation that West Bengali Muslims demonstrate and emphatic concern with dharma (ethics of justice and order), which is foremost reflected in the increasing presence of Islamic reformism. On the basis of a comprehensive exploration of the vernacular categories, ethics and practices of West Bengali Muslims, from personhood and sociality, to politics and plurality, the thesis demonstrates that Islamic reformism is a particular expression of a desire for holistic ethical renewal. This takes places in the context of pervasive corruption and political violence; a history of ambiguous communal politics; structural inequality; and the sense of ethical failure incited by suspicion and discrimination of Muslims. For Muslim West Bengalis, the crisis of Indian secularism is at once in the denial of substantive citizenship, and in the impossibility of a holistic regeneration of dharma. The thesis demonstrates that while these two desires are not inherently contradictory, but embedded in the ‘transcendental social’ of West Bengali Muslims, they are circumstantially contradictory given the secular epistemology of the modern state. Therefore, West Bengali Muslims continue to be denied not only substantive citizenship, but also human dignity.

The thesis presents an analytical approach and theoretical framework that go beyond the categories ‘religion’ and ‘secularism’ to bring to the forefront people’s ethical dispositions and practices, and the vernacular engagements with modernity through locally meaningful categories. Taking seriously the conceptualisation and practice of ethical life outside the secular West requires a critique of a secular conception of ethics. Drawing on Maurice Bloch’s model of the ‘transcendental social’, in conjunction with an analysis of virtue ethics and original ethnography, this thesis offers and innovative model of ethical reality that suggests that social imagination is the source of ethics.

Modern Asian Studies, 2020

This article examines the implications of the growing presence of the Tablighi Jamaat in Joygram,... more This article examines the implications of the growing presence of the Tablighi Jamaat in Joygram, a Muslim-majority village in rural West Bengal, India, drawing on fieldwork conducted between 2011 and 2013. The analysis of reformist Islam as a moral regeneration movement embedded in dharma and catalysing an alternative modernity contributes to the scholarship on lived experiences of Islam, modernity, and ethics. The Tablighi Jamaat in Joygram gains popularity in a political economic context of moral degradation and marginalization, which inspires engagements with globally resonant modern and anti-modern models of the self enveloped in the practice, discourse, and performance of Islamic reformism. These models mutually interact and conflict with locally particular practices and exclusionary categorizations. On the village level, the drive towards modernity ensues in conflicts over moral personhood and social exchanges. On the societal level, the modern aspirations of Joygrami Tablighis go beyond piety to ‘good culture’ and respected citizenship, and are embedded in anti-modern critiques of the hegemonic categorizations of the secular nation-state by which they are nevertheless confined. It is suggested that reformist Islam should not be misunderstood as pre-modern, anti-secular, or secular, but might better be called 'post-secular’ because it encompasses those ideologies in vernacularized forms on the basis of a different ideal conception of society. Islamic reformism in Joygram may resonate with moral regeneration and reactionary movements elsewhere. This analysis of the Tablighi Jamaat demonstrates the potential challenges social movements face in the transition to alternative modernities.

European Journal of Development Research, 2019

Drawing on long-term ethnographic research with Muslims in India, this article suggests that reli... more Drawing on long-term ethnographic research with Muslims in India, this article suggests that religion should not (only) be understood as a sub-category of development but as an integral part of the meta-ontology based on which one should engage with development initially. Value-driven development implies a normative view of society, and a ‘more human’ society is at the core of worthwhile development. For the research participants, their ontological conceptions (notions of what being human means) and the ethical autonomy to deliberate on a normative view of life and society are embedded in the Islamic dharma. To approach religion as only a sub-category in an otherwise secular development framework marginalises these, and probably many other, religious life experiences and ontological notions from the outset. Instead, secular and religious ontologies should be considered at par in an inclusive dialogue on worthwhile development.

The Religion Factor, 2018

Does piety threaten secularism? In this post, Fernande Pool examines the recent Netherlands Insti... more Does piety threaten secularism? In this post, Fernande Pool examines the recent Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP) report on Islam in the Netherlands, challenging the implicit bias contained within its use of ‘religion’ and ‘secularity’.

Fair Observer, 2017

The article draws on ethnographic research to explain why a view of pious Muslims as potential te... more The article draws on ethnographic research to explain why a view of pious Muslims as potential terrorists is a mistake that may have counterproductive effects, and may risk human rights abuses, especially when this view is becoming implicit in governmental CVE programs.

'Secularism isn't happening', sighed a Bengali Muslim man, dressed in meticulous white Islamic dr... more 'Secularism isn't happening', sighed a Bengali Muslim man, dressed in meticulous white Islamic dress, with a wild beard and an Islamic cap. With these words he encapsulated what so many rural Muslims in West Bengal conveyed to me over two years of field research. Their political, social and economic marginalisation demonstrates that secularism isn't working properly in India. Whenever I asked why secularism isn't happening, they'd answer that the problem is a lack of dharma (usually translated as religion) in both private and public life.

Fernande Pool attended the FaithXchange Annual Conference held at Goldsmiths, University of Londo... more Fernande Pool attended the FaithXchange Annual Conference held at Goldsmiths, University of London. In this report, she reflects on three papers which engage with the public sphere and secularism from empirical, methodological and theoretical perspectives respectively.

Fernande Pool explains how villagers in West Bengal are responding to delays in panchayat electio... more Fernande Pool explains how villagers in West Bengal are responding to delays in panchayat elections and related violence, and what impact these may have on the public’s faith in democracy.

This doctoral research explores the complexity of ethical life of the marginalized Muslim minorit... more This doctoral research explores the complexity of ethical life of the marginalized Muslim minority in the Indian secular state, drawing on 23 months of ethnographic fieldwork in a village in West Bengal. The thesis revolves around the observation that West Bengali Muslims demonstrate and emphatic concern with dharma (ethics of justice and order), which is foremost reflected in the increasing presence of Islamic reformism. On the basis of a comprehensive exploration of the vernacular categories, ethics and practices of West Bengali Muslims, from personhood and sociality, to politics and plurality, the thesis demonstrates that Islamic reformism is a particular expression of a desire for holistic ethical renewal. This takes places in the context of pervasive corruption and political violence; a history of ambiguous communal politics; structural inequality; and the sense of ethical failure incited by suspicion and discrimination of Muslims. For Muslim West Bengalis, the crisis of Indian secularism is at once in the denial of substantive citizenship, and in the impossibility of a holistic regeneration of dharma. The thesis demonstrates that while these two desires are not inherently contradictory, but embedded in the ‘transcendental social’ of West Bengali Muslims, they are circumstantially contradictory given the secular epistemology of the modern state. Therefore, West Bengali Muslims continue to be denied not only substantive citizenship, but also human dignity.

The thesis presents an analytical approach and theoretical framework that go beyond the categories ‘religion’ and ‘secularism’ to bring to the forefront people’s ethical dispositions and practices, and the vernacular engagements with modernity through locally meaningful categories. Taking seriously the conceptualisation and practice of ethical life outside the secular West requires a critique of a secular conception of ethics. Drawing on Maurice Bloch’s model of the ‘transcendental social’, in conjunction with an analysis of virtue ethics and original ethnography, this thesis offers and innovative model of ethical reality that suggests that social imagination is the source of ethics.