) is an anthropologist

Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...

 working on religion

Religion

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

 with a specialization in Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

 societies. He is currently Visiting Senior Fellow at the National University of Singapore

National University of Singapore

The National University of Singapore is Singapore's oldest university. It is the largest university in the country in terms of student enrollment and curriculum offered....

. and Senior Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK. Marranci is the founding editor of the first anthropological journal of Islamic studies

Islamic studies

In a Muslim context, Islamic studies can be an umbrella term for all virtually all of academia, both originally researched and as defined by the Islamization of knowledge...

, Contemporary Islam: Dynamics of Muslim Life. Together with Bryan Turner

Bryan S. Turner (sociologist)

Bryan S. Turner is a British and Australian sociologist . He was born in January 1945 to working class parents in Birmingham, England. Turner has led a remarkably nomadic life having held university appointments in England, Scotland, Australia, Germany, Holland, Singapore and the United States...

 he also edits the book series Muslims in Global Societies.

Education and academic history

During his training as an anthropologist, Marranci studied the relationship between gender

Gender

Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...

 and music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

al identity

Identity (social science)

Identity is a term used to describe a person's conception and expression of their individuality or group affiliations . The term is used more specifically in psychology and sociology, and is given a great deal of attention in social psychology...

 in immigrants

Immigration

Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...

 of Algeria

Algeria

Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...

n origin and later wrote about various aspects of raï

Raï

Raï is a form of folk music that originated in Oran, Algeria from Bedouin shepherds, mixed with Spanish, French, African and Arabic musical forms, which dates back to the 1930s....

 music among Algerian immigrants in Paris, France

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, based on his year-long anthropological fieldwork there. Moving beyond an examination of raï in its North Africa

North Africa

North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...

n context, Marranci focused upon the development of raï from its beginnings in Algeria to "Beur

Beur

Beur is a colloquial term to designate French-born people whose parents are immigrants from North Africa. The word was coined by reversing the syllables of the word arabe, which means Arabic or Arab in French. For example, "arabe" becomes "a-ra-beu" then "beu-ra-a" and "beur" by contraction. The...

-raï" in France. He received his MA degree

Master of Arts (postgraduate)

A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...

 in Anthropology of Music

Ethnomusicology

Ethnomusicology is defined as "the study of social and cultural aspects of music and dance in local and global contexts."Coined by the musician Jaap Kunst from the Greek words ἔθνος ethnos and μουσική mousike , it is often considered the anthropology or ethnography of music...

 in 1999 at the University of Bologna, Italy

University of Bologna

The Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna is the oldest continually operating university in the world, the word 'universitas' being first used by this institution at its foundation. The true date of its founding is uncertain, but believed by most accounts to have been 1088...

 and also completed a diploma in piano performance at the Conservatoire Girolamo Frescobaldi

Girolamo Frescobaldi

Girolamo Frescobaldi was a musician from Ferrara, one of the most important composers of keyboard music in the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. A child prodigy, Frescobaldi studied under Luzzasco Luzzaschi in Ferrara, but was influenced by a large number of composers, including Ascanio...

, a musical conservatory in Ferrara, Italy

Ferrara

Ferrara is a city and comune in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north...

, in 1998.

In 2000, Marranci moved to Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

 to study for a Ph.D.

Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

 in social anthropology

Social anthropology

Social Anthropology is one of the four or five branches of anthropology that studies how contemporary human beings behave in social groups. Practitioners of social anthropology investigate, often through long-term, intensive field studies , the social organization of a particular person: customs,...

 at Queen's University Belfast. Two years later, he became a teaching assistant within the same department. After conducting fieldwork with the Northern Irish Muslim community under the supervision of Kay Milton, he completed his PhD in 2003 with a thesis entitled The Adhan among the Bells: The Muslim Community in Northern Ireland. He published several articles and book chapters based on his fieldwork in Northern Ireland and also used material gathered there to furnish his first two books Jihad Beyond Islam and The Anthropology of Islam with ethnographic examples. From 2003 to 2008, Marranci was Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Aberdeen.

Research

Marranci has explored numerous topics concerning Muslims and Islam varying from general concepts such as arts, music, gender, ethnicity

Ethnic group

An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy...

, education

Education

Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

, political Islam

Political aspects of Islam

Political aspects of Islam are derived from the Qur'an, the Sunna , Muslim history, and elements of political movements outside Islam....

 and social issues to more specific ones such as jihad

Jihad

Jihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". Jihad appears 41 times in the Quran and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is...

, the ummah

Ummah

Ummah is an Arabic word meaning "community" or "nation." It is commonly used to mean either the collective nation of states, or the whole Arab world...

 and the idea of justice

Justice

Justice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics; justice is the act of being just and/or fair.-Concept of justice:...

. His areas of interest further include identity

Identity (social science)

Identity is a term used to describe a person's conception and expression of their individuality or group affiliations . The term is used more specifically in psychology and sociology, and is given a great deal of attention in social psychology...

 and emotion

Emotion

Emotion is a complex psychophysiological experience of an individual's state of mind as interacting with biochemical and environmental influences. In humans, emotion fundamentally involves "physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience." Emotion is associated with mood,...

s, urban sociology

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

, Muslim migration/immigration, criminology

Criminology

Criminology is the scientific study of the nature, extent, causes, and control of criminal behavior in both the individual and in society...

, fundamentalism

Fundamentalism

Fundamentalism is strict adherence to specific theological doctrines usually understood as a reaction against Modernist theology. The term "fundamentalism" was originally coined by its supporters to describe a specific package of theological beliefs that developed into a movement within the...

, secularisation processes

Secularization

Secularization is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward non-religious values and secular institutions...

, ethnomusicology

Ethnomusicology

Ethnomusicology is defined as "the study of social and cultural aspects of music and dance in local and global contexts."Coined by the musician Jaap Kunst from the Greek words ἔθνος ethnos and μουσική mousike , it is often considered the anthropology or ethnography of music...

, and the relationship between anthropological research and cognitive neuroscience

Cognitive neuroscience

Cognitive neuroscience is an academic field concerned with the scientific study of biological substrates underlying cognition, with a specific focus on the neural substrates of mental processes. It addresses the questions of how psychological/cognitive functions are produced by the brain...

. All of these seemingly highly varied topics, however, are linked to his main social anthropological interest: human identity and self.

Singapore

Marranci’s current research focuses on young Malay Muslims (aged 12–25) and the issues that they may encounter in contemporary Singapore. Based on participant observation and interviews with male and female residents of welfare homes, parents, educators and organizations, his topic investigates the exposure of young Malays to what he terms as ‘global social threats’ and also the effects of a widening generational gap in the context of the recent 2008-2009 economic crisis.

England and Scotland

Between 2004 and 2007, Marranci conducted in-depth research among Muslims in prison

Prison

A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

 – the longest study of its kind to date. Funded by the British Academy

British Academy

The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national body for the humanities and the social sciences. Its purpose is to inspire, recognise and support excellence in the humanities and social sciences, throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value.It receives an annual...

, the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland

Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland

The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland is a charitable trust established by Andrew Carnegie in 1901 for the benefit of the universities of Scotland, their students and their staff....

 and the University of Aberdeen

University of Aberdeen

The University of Aberdeen, an ancient university founded in 1495, in Aberdeen, Scotland, is a British university. It is the third oldest university in Scotland, and the fifth oldest in the United Kingdom and wider English-speaking world...

, this research focused on the experience of Muslims in prison in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and how being behind bars impacted their identity and experience of Islam. Using participant observation

Participant observation

Participant observation is a type of research strategy. It is a widely used methodology in many disciplines, particularly, cultural anthropology, but also sociology, communication studies, and social psychology...

 as a primary research methodology

Methodology

Methodology is generally a guideline for solving a problem, with specificcomponents such as phases, tasks, methods, techniques and tools . It can be defined also as follows:...

, Marranci conducted over 170 interviews with current and former Muslim prisoners and their families. This meant taking part in Friday prayers

Jumu'ah

Jumu'ah is a congregational prayer that Muslims hold every Friday, just after noon in lieu of dhuhr...

, Islamic lessons, observing imams' activities and spending time with the prisoners in their cells and during their association time – at times for up to 10 hours a day. As far as former prisoners are concerned, this has also included living for a short time with the former prisoners' families and following their lives once released from prison.

Marranci presented some of his research at the 2007 IQRA Trust Annual Lecture at the House of Lords

House of Lords

The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....

. His research has also attracted attention from newspapers such as The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

, Le Figaro

Le Figaro

Le Figaro is a French daily newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. It is one of three French newspapers of record, with Le Monde and Libération, and is the oldest newspaper in France. It is also the second-largest national newspaper in France after Le Parisien and before Le Monde, but...

, and Daily Times (Pakistan), among others. In addition, he has been interviewed for a documentary for the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

.

Northern Ireland

Between 2001 and 2003 Marranci carried out fieldwork among the local Muslim community, primarily in Belfast

Belfast

Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...

. His research interests included cultural influences, religious modifications, the concept of ummah

Ummah

Ummah is an Arabic word meaning "community" or "nation." It is commonly used to mean either the collective nation of states, or the whole Arab world...

, children's education, Muslim associations, community organization, child-parent relationships, identity conflicts, and women. He also studied identity construction among Muslim migrants and their children, proposing an interpretation of the reasons for which Muslims in the West may radicalize or understand jihad as violent struggle. He has published some of this research in Jihad beyond Islam and, along with findings from his research with Muslims in prison, in Understanding Muslim Identity, Rethinking Fundamentalism.

Italy

Between 1999 and 2000, Marranci studied Muslim immigrant women and their daughters in Pisa

Pisa

Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...

. His fieldwork centered on family roles, women's associations, diaspora

Diaspora

A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...

, myth of return, private vs. public, female genital mutilation in immigration contexts and social relationships.

France

Between 1998 and 1999, Marranci conducted fieldwork in both Paris and Lyon

Lyon

Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....

 with first and second-generation

Immigrant generations

The term first-generation [citizen of a country], e.g., "first-generation Ruritanian" may have either of two different meanings:*A citizen of the country who is a naturalized immigrant.or*A citizen whose parents are naturalized immigrants....

 Algerian immigrants, focussing on the use of urban space, identity conflicts, cultural expressions, gender, transnationalism

Transnationalism

Transnationalism is a social movement and scholarly research agenda grown out of the heightened interconnectivity between people and the receding economic and social significance of boundaries among nation states....

 and local and global dimensions.

Selected bibliography

• Marranci, G. (2009), Faith, Ideology and Fear: Muslim Identities Within and Beyond Prisons, London and New York: Continuum Books
• Marranci, G. (2009), The Sociology and Anthropology of Islam, in Bryan Turner
  Bryan S. Turner (sociologist)
  Bryan S. Turner is a British and Australian sociologist . He was born in January 1945 to working class parents in Birmingham, England. Turner has led a remarkably nomadic life having held university appointments in England, Scotland, Australia, Germany, Holland, Singapore and the United States...
  
   (ed.) The New Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
• Marranci, G. (2009), Understanding Muslim Identity, Rethinking Fundamentalism, London, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Marranci, G. (2008), British Muslims and the British State, in Bryan Turner
  Bryan S. Turner (sociologist)
  Bryan S. Turner is a British and Australian sociologist . He was born in January 1945 to working class parents in Birmingham, England. Turner has led a remarkably nomadic life having held university appointments in England, Scotland, Australia, Germany, Holland, Singapore and the United States...
  
  (ed.), Religious Diversity and Civil Society: A Comparative Analysis, Oxford: Bardwell Press.
• Marranci, G. (2007), The Anthropology of Islam, London and New York: Berg
• Marranci, G. (2007), From the Ethos of Justice to the Ideology of Justice: Understanding Radical Views of Scottish Muslims, in Tahir Abbas (ed.), Islamic Political Radicalism: A European Comparative Perspective, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
• Marranci, G. (2006), Jihad beyond Islam, London and New York: Berg.