The international conference “Balkan Islam and Balkan Muslims - European Perspectives”, organised by Dževada Garić et Samim Akgönül (université de Strasbourg), will be held on 5-6 octobre 2026 in the conférence auditorium at MISHA (Strasbourg).
Presentation
Since the labour migrations of the 1960s and 1970s, the displacements caused by the post-Yugoslav wars, post-socialist mobilities, and
contemporary student and professional circulations, Muslim populations from the Balkans, from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Sandžak, have settled durably in France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Benelux, the Nordic countries, and the United Kingdom. They now constitute one of Western Europe’s oldest autochthonous Muslim diasporas, yet they remain comparatively invisible in public and academic debates on European Islam, which tend to be structured around other regional reference points.
This conference proposes to place these communities at the centre of the analysis. It seeks to examine the modalities of their settlement, the
organisation of their religious and associative lives, the transnational ties they maintain with their societies of origin, and the ways in which they articulate their European belonging in a context shaped by the securitisation of Islam and the reconfiguration of secularism regimes. Thehistorical legacies of Balkan Islam, its Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian and Yugoslav layers, provide the necessary backdrop to this reading, without being its main object.
Thematic tracks
The conference will bring together contributions from history, sociology, anthropology, religious studies, political science and law. Both comparative approaches across Western European countries and localised case studies are welcome.
- The formation and historical development of Islam in the Balkans
- Theology and the specificities of the interpretation of Islam in the Balkans
- Islamic thought and its contemporary developments
- Plural identities: being Muslim, Balkan and European
- Migratory trajectories and diasporic reconfigurations: labour, war, post-socialism, contemporary mobilities
- Institutions, places of worship and Balkan Muslim associations in Western Europe
- Transnational circulations: imams, religious knowledge, ritual practices, diaspora economies
- Generations, languages, transmission and religious practice in diasporic contexts
- Women and youth in Balkan Muslim communities across Western Europe
- Relations with host societies: institutional recognition, secularism, pro- and anti-Muslim discourses
- The experience of war, genocide and collective memory
Submission guidelines
Proposals (200–300 words, in English or French), together with a short biographical note, should be sent by 15 June 2026 to:
Notification of acceptance: 15 July 2026.
Funding
Funding (travel and accommodation) may be awarded, with priority given to doctoral candidates and early-career researchers.
Scientific committee
- Samim Akgönül
- Dževada Garić
- Ségolène Plyer
- Khalid Rabeh
Download the call for paper
