Bairam, Balkanslang, Basketball… Die vielfältigen Zugehörigkeiten von muslimischen in der Schweiz

This paper is about the multiple belonging of young Muslims in Switzerland. It aims to understand how children of immigrants from South East Europe take an active part in the «politics of belonging» in everyday life. In Western Europe, the category «Muslim» is represented by two dominant frames: the security frame, that identifies Muslims

globally with terrorism, and the culturalist frame, that sets the West against Islam. Yet, which kinds of identification matter for young Muslims themselves? The ethnographic examples illustrate the many possible ways of orienting one’s life as a young Muslim in Switzerland. This paper concludes that a greater emphasis upon the multiple belonging of young Muslims in Switzerland helps counter a widespread tendency to propose a hegemonic and dichotomist view in terms of «them and us».