[Séminaire - Les sciences sociales en question] “The political impact of minority-religion symbols in the public space”

Sciences Po, on Zoom 

Does the presence of minority-religions symbols in the public space facilitate minorities’ acculturation or not? Conversely does it accustom host society members to their presence or on the contrary, antagonize them? And how do you measure these effects? These are the questions Pazit ben Nun Bloom tries to answer, drawing from her largescale comparative ERC project ReligSpace, mixing naturalistic field experiments embedded surveys and Augmented/Virtual Reality technologies in France, England and Israel.

Speaker

Pazit Ben Nun Bloom (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) has been exploring the relationship between values and democratic culture, and in particular the conditions under which religion and moral convictions hinder or enhance democratic norms. She has recently published “Religion and democratic commitment: A unifying motivational framework”, Advances in Political Psychology, 2021 (with G Arikan, A Vishkin); “Discrimination of minority welfare claimants in the real world: The effect of implicit prejudice”, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 2022, online (with M Assouline and S Gilad).

Discussants

Martin Aranguren (Sciences Po, CRIS CNRS) investigates everyday discrimination in urban public places on the basis of field experiments. See "Responses to the Islamic headscarf in everyday interactions depend on sex and locale: a field experiment in the metros of Brussels, Paris, and Vienna on helping and involvement behaviors", PLoS One, 16(7), 2021(with F. Madrisotti, E.Durmaz-Martins, G. Gerger, L. Wittmann & M. Méhu); "Anti-Muslim behavior in everyday interaction: evidence from a field experiment in Paris", Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Online 15 July 2021(with F.Madrisotti & E.Durmaz-Martins).

Juliette Galonnier (Sciences Po, CERI) works on the social construction and imbrication of racial and religious categories, and particularly on Islam in minority situation, using in-depth interviewing and ethnography. See « Barbes et foulards: les marqueurs genrés de l’islamophobie », in G. Lavinia, E.Lepinard and O. Sarrasin (eds.), Genre et islamophobie : Discriminations, préjugés et représentations en Europe, Lyon, ENS Editions, 2021;  “The racial realities of French Muslims: colonial legacies and contemporary issues”, in Z. Abdullah (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Islam and Race (forthcoming)

Co-chair

Nonna Mayer, Sciences Po, CEE, CNRS Tommaso Vitale, Sciences Po, CEE & Urban School

Scientific coordination : Samy Cohen, Sciences Po, CERI and Nonna Mayer, Sciences Po, CEE, CNRS.