Hybrid Trajectories of Transnational Islamism

The Uprisings that broke out on the southern shores of the Mediterranean in 2011 and the waves of migration that followed have shed light on the resurgence of Islamist movements in North Africa and on a renewed presence of Islamic communities in the Western world.

On the one hand, media, policymakers, and national intelligence services have increasingly focused on the integration of Muslim communities in host countries.

However, these analyses have been limited to the house-keeping relations between migrant communities and the host states, and have not explored the transformative dynamics of Islamist movements when they go transnational.

On the other hand, while studies on Islamic activism have effectively highlighted the role of domestic and international factors in transforming the organisation and ideology of Islamist actors, the literature has barely focused on the transnational dimension as an analytical space of enquiry in itself.

Indeed, scholarly work on the topic has not systematically investigated the impact of trans-nationalisation dynamics on the ideological, organisational and socio-political dimensions of movements.

This gap led to simplistic analyses based on a monolithic interpretation of Islamist movements relying on the dichotomy moderation/radicalisation.

HYBRIS aims to overcome this gap by examining the hybrid trajectories of transnational Islamism in a systematic way and from a cross-country perspective.

The project will break new ground in the field by mapping the different trajectories of Ennahda and the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) starting from the ties and networks that activists and organisations belonging to the two movements have created between geographically distant locations.

It will do so by analysing two intertwined dimensions of the process of trans-nationalisation, digital activism and re-localisation dynamics, taking Islamist movements and their transnational expansion in the European and North American contexts as case studies.