Barrie Wharton

Bio: Barrie Wharton is an academic researcher from University of Limerick. The author has contributed to research in topics: Global governance & Identity (social science). The author has an hindex of 2, co-authored 2 publications receiving 7 citations.

Twin towers of cultural confusion? Contemporary crises of identity in Europe and European Islam

Abstract: This article analyses the social and cultural dislocation that Muslim communities are currently experiencing in contemporary European society against the background of an increasingly vague and ill-defined European socio-cultural identity. The principal objective is to assess whether this dislocation should be interpreted as a problem pertaining to Islam or to what extent it mirrors and is fuelled by Europe's own cultural dilemma. As such, the article examines the current socio-cultural impasse that overshadows much of the relationship between Muslim communities and Europe in order to assess the implications of this major internal challenge to the future of the European project.

Turkey in Somalia: challenging North/Western interventionism?

Abstract: Turkey’s humanitarian and development intervention in Somalia is unusually illuminating as a case study to investigate the relations between emerging and conventional interveners in conflict zones ...

No Muslims Allowed? An analysis of the State of Pluralism in the West

Abstract: iii Resume iv Resumo v Introduction 10 Definitions 13 Methodology 16 Chapter 1. The Context: A Changing World? 18 1.1. A Humble Lesson for a Canadian Student 18 1.2. The Muslims are coming? 19 1.3. Western Muslims: Middle Class, Mainstream and Mostly Secular 23 1.4. Getting beyond Reductionist Thinking 27 Chapter 2. Dawn of a New Century 29 2.1. The Closing of the Western Mind 29 2.2. Creating a New Other‘ 31 Chapter 3. Paralyzed in Fear: the Policies of the West 35 3.1. Fluctuating definitions of Democracy 35 3.2. France: No Place for Religion in the Public Space 37 3.3. Denmark: The Cartoon Controversy 39 3.4. Contemplating Bans in Belgium, Spain, and Italy 41 3.5. Netherlands: Freedom of Speech on trial? 42 3.6. Switzerland: the Minaret Ban 44 3.7. USA: The Ground Zero Mosque‘ and the Burning of Qurans 45 3.8. Canada: No face? No Government Services! 47 3.9. Symptoms versus Substance 48 Chapter 4. The Islamic Spectrum 51 4.1. What is Islam? 51 4.2. The Diversity of Islam 54 4.3. Merging of ―Civilizations‖? 55

Motivations: What Motivates Muslim Women to Participate in Politics?

Abstract: Chapter Two explores the motivations to participate in politics expressed by Muslim women in the study. In an attempt to better understand features that differentiate Muslim women’s motivations to participate in politics from those of the wider population, the chapter affords specific focus to the notion of ‘European Islam’ and the extent to which, if at all, it motivates Muslim women’s political participation in politics. Here, comparative analysis reveals the contextually-imposed constraints regarding explicitly identifying with Islam within the framework of motivations and also considers the role of expressing such motivations in the broader scheme of countering dominant Islamophobic narratives. In addition, the chapter explores more generalised motivations to participate in politics, including the role of political efficacy, altruism, social justice and social identification. Furthermore, the interplay of expressed motivations with the nature of Muslim women’s political participation is explored.

European Education and Islam: Liberalism and Alterity

Abstract: The end purpose of education, conceived broadly as that fundamental good that needs to be secured for the future well-being of the young, has been prone to come under question in times of acute change when stock notions of Self and society are confronted by new forms of thinking and acting. In a century whose opening decades are coming to be characterized by the entanglement of the old and the new, the meshing of the tribal and the global, it is therefore not a surprise to find fervent debate among educators on issues of culture, identity, and location. Contemporary education is contending with conflicting forces of cohesion and plurality, on how to relate the situated—as conditioned by history and legacy—to the universal that makes reference to the unbounded. How are emerging generations to be guided on inherited identities and yet be open to affiliate with the wider collective of humanity? The question is by no means academic, but of standing urgency in a world being reconfigured by global and regional realignments, transnational economies, diasporic migrations, virtual networking, and other developments that are scaling up the volume of human encounters globally. As political and economic boundaries become more porous, so does the pressure intensify on historically enclosed identities to reposition themselves.

Militarising Counterterrorism in Southeast Asia: Incompatibilities and Implications for ASEAN

Abstract: The occupation of the city of Marawi in the southern Philippines and a series of terrorist attacks in Indonesia which followed it demonstrate that terrorism is a persistent and enduring threat to Southeast Asian security, despite the governments’ concerted efforts on countering terrorism since 9/11 and the Bali Bombings in 2002 and 2005. Security specialists and defence officials in the region believe that ASEAN has to intensify its cooperation to address the challenge of terrorism through the use of military forces. This article, however, claims that the militarised counterterrorism has no institutional, normative and practical basis within ASEAN’s main security structure, the APSC. This is followed by dual implications for the broader security agendas, affecting democratisation and sharpening mistrust among ASEAN states which challenges ASEAN centrality in regional security affairs.