Articles | Volume 72, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-72-303-2017
https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-72-303-2017
Standard article
 | 
14 Jul 2017
Standard article |  | 14 Jul 2017

Freunde führen einander – Der kommunalpolitische Dialog mit dem „Islam“ im Modus einer Gouvernementalität der Freundschaft

Jan Winkler

Abstract. Drawing on Foucault's notion of governmentality and on ethnographic fieldwork in a German city, this paper addresses practices of governing Muslims and Islam at the level of local politics. It conceptualises these practices as a governing through friendship, that is, a type of liberal conduct-of-conduct that focuses on trust-building and practised togetherness. The paper analyses techniques of governance and processes of subjectivation, putting an emphasis on how emotionality becomes integrated into governmental practices. I show how governing through friendship unfolds in the spatio-political context of a local dialogue with Islam, how the latter is linked to the interfaith paradigm and thus becomes a religiously-sensitive, post-secular political technology in which religious sensibilities are becoming elements of governmentality.

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Short summary
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a German city, this paper addresses practices of governing Muslims and Islam within local politics. It analyses how the political technology of dialogue aims at the integration and formation of Muslim communities and is increasingly deploying the idea of interfaith relations. The paper discusses this approach as a governing through friendship: A practice of involvement that operates through trust-building and the fostering of personal acquaintances and ties.