Muslim sound,public space,and citizenship agendas in an American City

Based on fieldwork in a small Michigan city, this study examines a contestation over the right for Muslims to broadcast the Islamic call to prayer, or adhan, into the streets. At stake in such contestations over public space is a struggle over conflicting citizenship agendas, or ideological formations seeking to advance particular models for good citizenship and the acceptable integration of minorities. Some Hamtramck citizens who identified themselves as interfaith actors advocated a citizenship agenda to support the call to prayer based on a material and spatial conception of shared civic culture that challenged assumptions about political differences between religious communities. To forward these aims, interfaith actors organized public ritual events that offered opportunities for visceral and experiential investments into the sights, sounds, and ceremonies of Hamtramck's religiously diverse public arena. This strategy encouraged people to a cross boundaries into previously exclusive religious spaces and presented opportunities to expand the cultural boundaries of municipal belonging.