I ♡ Islam

Popular Religious Commodities, Sites of Inscription, and Transnational Sierra Leonean Identity

Bibliographic Data

ID2390794
AuthorsJoann D’alisera (Department of Anthropology, University of Arkansas, corresponding author)
Year2001
Volume6
Issue1
Pages91-110
Publication date2001-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Material Culture (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1359-1835 • E-ISSN: 1460-3586
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/135918350100600105
OpenAlexW2126790504
LanguageEN
Citations received14
References cited17

This essay explores how and why Muslim Sierra Leoneans living and working in the Washington DC metropolitan area inscribe religious identity onto their work sites by means of a variety of Islamic commodities. These items, ranging from bumper stickers and decals to informational pamphlets and kosher hot dogs, are physical manifestations of experience, a means of situating individual and community in transnational space. Looking at how individuals use religious objects to make and maintain their worlds points to the act of display as a physical manifestation of experience. How such objects are utilized on, in, and around taxi cabs and food vending stands - my male and female informants' primary work sites - reveals the artistic creation of new sensitivities towards self and religion, highlighting the complexity of multiple gazes and responses in multi-cultural Muslim and broader non-Muslim spaces

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Identity (music · Islam · Linguistics · Media studies · Metropolitan area · Sociology · Space (punctuation) · Variety (cybernetics · Work (physics · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Engineering · Gender Studies · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Religious Tourism and Spaces