TY - JOUR

T1 - “Discoursing sectarianism” approach

T2 - What and how to analyze in sectarian discourses

AU - Alghashian, Abdulaziz

AU - Menshawy, Mustafa

N1 - This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Alghashian, A., & Menshawy, M. (2022). “Discoursing sectarianism” approach: What and how to analyze in sectarian discourses. Digest of Middle East Studies, 31, 83– 95. https://doi.org/10.1111/dome.12265 which has been published in final form at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/dome.12265 This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.

PY - 2022/5/31

Y1 - 2022/5/31

N2 - This article puts forth “discoursing sectarianism” as an approach helping overcome gaps in essentialism, instrumentalist, and constructivism as the three main lines of analyzing sectarianism. The approach takes language as a point of departure, showing how it can dually describe reality as a “neutral” medium of communication and also create reality as constitutive component of practices sectarianization. The approach also focuses on workings of ideology and power relations as part of linking language, texted in variable formats such as written speeches, monuments, or images, with contexts shaping or being shaped with them. Thus, we have to study manifestations or articulations sectarianism, for example, a speech or an image, within the broader process of their actualization or materialization (e.g., the context in which these articulations are enforced, transformed, challenged, or falsified). This broader process of discoursing sectarianism within language and beyond can thus accommodate elements predominating analyses in the three other lines of enquiry such as religion and history. The final section of the paper maps a practical and analytical toolkit for researchers and analysts seeking to investigate sectarian discourses by offering the three mutually inclusive levels of textual practices, discursive practices, and political practices.

AB - This article puts forth “discoursing sectarianism” as an approach helping overcome gaps in essentialism, instrumentalist, and constructivism as the three main lines of analyzing sectarianism. The approach takes language as a point of departure, showing how it can dually describe reality as a “neutral” medium of communication and also create reality as constitutive component of practices sectarianization. The approach also focuses on workings of ideology and power relations as part of linking language, texted in variable formats such as written speeches, monuments, or images, with contexts shaping or being shaped with them. Thus, we have to study manifestations or articulations sectarianism, for example, a speech or an image, within the broader process of their actualization or materialization (e.g., the context in which these articulations are enforced, transformed, challenged, or falsified). This broader process of discoursing sectarianism within language and beyond can thus accommodate elements predominating analyses in the three other lines of enquiry such as religion and history. The final section of the paper maps a practical and analytical toolkit for researchers and analysts seeking to investigate sectarian discourses by offering the three mutually inclusive levels of textual practices, discursive practices, and political practices.

KW - discourse analysis

KW - discoursing sectarianism

KW - sectarianism

U2 - 10.1111/dome.12265

DO - 10.1111/dome.12265

M3 - Journal article

VL - 31

SP - 83

EP - 95

JO - Digest of Middle East Studies

JF - Digest of Middle East Studies

SN - 1060-4367

IS - 2

ER -