Common difference: Conceptualising simultaneity and racial sincerity in Jewish-Muslim relations in the United Kingdom

Egorova, Yulia

Abstract

Building upon ethnographic research conducted among participants in UK-based initiatives in Jewish-Muslim dialogue, the paper contributes to anthropological literature on the essentialising nature of state-sponsored constructions of minoritised groups. More specifically, I put forward two sets of arguments. Firstly, I suggest a concept of simultaneity that challenges colonially inflected conceptualisations of the relationship between communities and their respective traditions. Activists of Jewish-Muslim inter-community work subvert dominant conceptualisations of intergroup commonalities and divergencies by developing a theorisation of Jewish-Muslim relations that acknowledges group similarities and differences as overlapping categories. Secondly, I contribute to John Jackson's (2005) theorisation of racial sincerity, a notion offering a conceptual challenge to the notion of authenticity. I argue that the complexity of my interlocutors’ thematisations of Jewish-Muslim relations underpinned by the diversity of the sources of knowledge that they rely on could be best understood as an example of this analytic. On a broader theoretical plane, the paper proposes a framework that underscores the agentive power of minority communities and pays close attention to the way they define their positionalities vis-à-vis the majorities and each other in ways that go beyond binaries-based theorisations.

Citation

Egorova, Y. (2023). Common difference: Conceptualising simultaneity and racial sincerity in Jewish-Muslim relations in the United Kingdom. Anthropological Theory, 24(1), 67-87. https://doi.org/10.1177/14634996231179520

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 21, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Aug 1, 2023
• Publication Date: Aug 1, 2023
• Deposit Date: Apr 26, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 26, 2023
• Journal: Anthropological Theory
• Print ISSN: 1463-4996
• Electronic ISSN: 1741-2641
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 24
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 67-87
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/14634996231179520
• Keywords: dialogue, difference, Sincerity, Judaism, relations, inter-faith, Islam, essentialism
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1174053
• Publisher URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ant