Marta Dominguez Diaz

Anthropologists have for long been concerned with the issue of invisibility and with the processes by which the invisible attempts to become noted. This article is an exploration of one such case. The setting here explored is the borderland that separates North-Africa from Europe, Morocco from Spain, more precisely the two autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla. As the autonomous character of the cities themselves evoke, being often left outside the national imagination of what is commonly seen as ‘Spain’, the two North-African ports echo Latour’s depiction of invisibilities, which are not simply social constructions, nor are they autonomous realities beyond our reach. Rather, they are both constructed and real; they are artifacts and actors. These invisibilities, together with the vectors that operate to make them noticeable, are what Latour labels ‘regimes of invisibility’ (2010). I content in this article, that the relations between Muslims and Christians in Ceuta and Melilla work through the lenses of a regime of this type, one in which a group exerts its power by being visible and legible, whilst the other is pushed away, not without resistance, from the ‘central stage’. The regime as Latour reminds us, displays an intricate set of practices, technologies, mediators, knowledges, and translations that ascend to illuminate the invisible. This research is an attempt at scrutinising some of these dynamics as they occur where Morocco meets Spain. In the case here analysed, religion is due to historical reasons enunciated as the main vehicle to articulate both the rule and the resistance to the processes of erasure/becoming apparent. Religion is in this borderland, the language through which the regime, as well as its discontents, are expressed. The article critically assesses the relational dynamics between Muslims and Christians in Ceuta and Melilla against the trope of ‘invisibility’ by arguing that a privileged Christian community generates mechanisms to turn invisible the disadvantaged Muslim group of the enclaves, a process that responds to a genealogy of longue durée. In particular the article looks at some of the facets in which the regime of invisibility is (ironically enough) manifested, namely: a) the historical underpinnings of the regime, b) the regime as expressed in economic terms, its spatial manifestations in c) the urban planning (or the lack of it), d) and in its religious architecture, e) the regime as expressed discursively by a mechanism of ‘racializing’ religion, and finally, f) the regime’s discontent and g)the strategies by which the invisible attempts to become visible. Overall, this is an attempt to shed light at some of the processes by which various invisibilities are hidden and reclaimed and the use being made of religion to articulate this particular relational dynamics of othering. The fact that this process occurs in itself in a borderland territory, liminal by nature, and thus with great potential for being turned illegible, adds complexity to the forces at work. Nonetheless, it is both the liminal character of Ceuta and Melilla in the national geography of both countries, Spain and Morocco, as well as the somehow unique role given to religion in enunciating the visible/invisible what turns the study of the religion/borderland dyad a particular useful lenses in understanding such ‘regime.’

There has not been much open discussion concerning the challenges faced by scholars who undertake fieldwork among members of Sufi Orders.4 The present article examines several issues that appeared whilst trying to negotiate the delicate balance between detachment and involvement in the course of ethnographic research among devotees of the Būdshīshiyya. It engages with the dynamics of the ethnographic experience with the intention of uncovering the mechanisms by which knowledge is produced. It argues that the knowledge derived from ethnographic work is subjective and partial by nature, and that being able to engage with its resulting ambiguities and contradictions lends it a more nuanced, real, and less representational perspective. The article aims to shed light on a number of areas of the ethnographical encounter by drawing attention to certain themes: first, it examines how gender determined the scope of the research and circumscribed the possibilities of data collection. Second, it analyses some of the peculiarities involved in conducting multi-sited fieldwork in a transnational religious organisation. Third, it raises specific methodological concerns with regard to the often transitory nature of membership of the ṭarīqa. Finally, it discusses how the present author coped with religious proselytization and its potential effects on the relationship between devotees and researcher. Overall, the article seeks to address certain aspects of the ethnographic experience that appeared when conducting fieldwork with the Būdshīshiyya. Some of these are specific to work with this ṭarīqa, whilst others may also arise in the course of research among other Sufi Orders, Islamic groups, and even non-Muslim religious organisations that operate within the context of modernity and at a transnational level. Although the article reflects on personal ethnographic accounts, it addresses aspects of experience-based research that may also be encountered by those engaged in conducting research among other contemporary religious groups.

Scholarship on modern Sufism has centred on the analysis of turuq (sing. tariqa – often translated as ‘Sufi orders’), by scrutinising the institutional dimension of a group of devotees who gather around a sheikh, and/or the set of religious practices and doctrines believed to be characteristic of each tariqa. Even though Sufi orders have expanded internationally, creating new local communities, the underlying rationale of the shared religious character of each tariqa prevails in most studies. This paper explores the dynamics of reterritorialisation of a Moroccan Sufi order, the Qadiriyya, in the United Kingdom by comparing it to other enclaves of the same order in continental Europe. It suggests that ritual variations are indicative of the religious diversity existing within each order. In order to do so, the article focuses on the analysis of ritual practices and it addresses how ritual performance evolves when a Sufi order becomes transnational. More precisely, it looks at the effects of ritual on the dynamics and unity within the Qadiriyya and the extent to which the reconfiguration of ritual practice contributes to the expansion of the order beyond its original enclave. The article scrutinises ritual variances as developed by the British Qadiriyya and considers the implications that these changes have for the religious identity of local groups of devotees as well as for its relationship with the rest of the enclaves that conform to the order.