Berkley Center

In "The Muslim Stranger," Jocelyne Cesari builds on Georg Simmel’s definition of the stranger to examine Muslims’ twofold position as outsiders and insiders within European societies. She argues that this specific status has triggered two distinct fears: xenophobia and Islamophobia. Both are at work in the current political treatment of Islam and Muslims and reinforce each other, independently of the legal, national, and social status of the concerned persons. The article was published in volume 88, number 4 of Social Research: An International Quarterly.