Bunche 11372

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The Center for European and Russian Studies (CERS) in co-sponsorship with the Center for Near Eastern Studies (CNES) and the Center for the Study of Religion (CSR) invite you to Halal Dining in Rotterdam: “Lived” Religious Diversity and the Importance of the Private Sector, a lecture by Margreet van Es, assistant professor of religious studies, Utrecht University. The event will take place in-person in Bunche 11372 on Tuesday, May 16, 2023 at 12pm.

Abstract

How to study religious diversity as a “lived experience” in urban settings? Based on ethnographic fieldwork in trendy, alcohol-free halal restaurants in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Margreet van Es proposes to pay more attention to the (often overlooked) role of the private sector, and in particular to cafes and restaurants. Cafes and restaurants are crucial to contemporary social life, and as their numbers keep growing, they increasingly determine the streetscape in Western Europe’s major cities. Meanwhile, religion more and more often feeds into what is on the menu and what is conspicuously absent from the menu in a particular restaurant – whether it is because restaurateurs try to appeal to new consumer groups, or whether it is because of their own religious considerations. This applies most obviously to the growing availability of halal food, but one can also think of the growing number of Hindu vegetarian restaurants, Rastafari vegan restaurants, and kosher restaurants. This raises all sorts of questions, including: to what extent can restaurant consumption and entrepreneurship be seen as practices of “religious place-making”? And what does this tell us about the role of the private sector in “lived” religious diversity and the “politics of belonging” more generally?

Speaker

Margreet van Es is an assistant professor of religious studies at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Having over ten years of experience studying anti-Muslim racism in Europe, she currently analyzes the emergence of trendy, alcohol-free halal restaurants in Rotterdam through the lens of cosmopolitanism and the politics of belonging. From April 1 to June 30, 2023 Margreet van Es is a visiting professor at the UCLA Center for European and Russian Studies. At UCLA, she also teaches the sociology course Contesting Diversity in the Netherlands.

Respondent

Aomar Boum is a Professor and Maurice Amado Endowed Chair in Sephardic Studies at UCLA Anthropology. Boum is a socio-cultural anthropologist with a historical bent concerned with the social and cultural representation of and political discourse about religious and ethnic minorities in the Middle East and North Africa. His ethnographic work engages the place of religious and ethnic minorities such as Jews, Baha’is, Shias and Christians in post-independence Middle Eastern and North African states. My multi-disciplinary background and academic experience are at the intersections of Middle Eastern and North African studies, Islamic studies, Religious studies, African studies and Jewish studies. Much of his work has focused on the anthropology and history of Jewish-Muslim relations from the 19th century to the present. He has also written on different topics such as Moroccan Jewish historiography, Islamic archives and manuscripts, education, music, youth, Holocaust, anti-Semitism, migration, and sports among other things.

Venue

Bunche Hall, Room 11372 (11th floor)
315 Portola Plaza
Los Angeles, CA 90095

Download file: 20230516_Halal-Dining-in-Rotterdam-poster-0o-oe5.pdf

Sponsor(s): Center for European and Russian Studies, Center for Near Eastern Studies, Center for the Study of Religion