Workshop on “Navigating Democracy in Turbulent Times”

On October 26, 27 and 28, Casa Árabe hosted this event at its headquarters in Cordoba, to analyze the exclusion and stigmatization of Muslim populations in a polarized Europe.

The event’s goal was to determine new data based on documentary and ethnographic research to understand local manifestations of threat politics and to build a common framework for researchers at the urban level. Four teams participated from France, the UK, Spain and Norway.

The project, run through QUEST (Qualification in Europe for Shifting Trust), includes the planned organization of several workshops,thus creating spaces for thought to translate the project into action on an international scale. This first themed workshop, under the auspices of Norface Governance (New Opportunities for Research Funding Agency Cooperation in Europe), brought together civil society and academic audiences to talk about various features (historical, political, social, etc.) that have shaped the contemporary political climate in a number of EU contexts, having at their core the issue of Muslims/minorities as the main theme in “threat politics.” The central focus of this event was a dialogue with CrimScapes: “Navigating Citizenship through European Landscapes of Criminalisation,” another consortium in the Norface Program “Democratic Governance in a Turbulent Era.”

The CrimScapes project explores the increasing application of criminal law, crime control measures and imaginaries of (il)legality as responses to and producers of the “threat and uncertainty politics” which are currently spreading across the European region.