Muslim University Students and Graduates Navigating Nairobi: The Poetics and Politics of Religious Coexistence
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: : With a focus on Muslim university students and graduates, this article considers how their educational trajectories (have) necessitate(d) mixing with (religious) “others” and asks what their experiences can tell us about modalities of multireligious cohabitation in Nairobi more broadly. The ethnography challenges the notion of mixing as a liberal “good” or a choice, as Western multicultural discourse holds. Instead, it reveals both how young Muslims navigate encounters with “others” through a mix of shared aspiration, proximity, and necessity and how, post-graduation, multiple factors preclude or undermine such “spaces of commonality” (Hage 2014). Their experiences suggest that urban coexistence is not about tolerance but pragmatism, which neither denies (religious) difference nor centers it. In doing so, it contributes to discussions of everyday life amid socioreligious diversity in Africa and beyond.
Source: Africa Today
DOI: 10.2979/at.00064
Author: Leslie Fesenmyer
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7140959573
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