Mixed Intimacies in Postcolonial Europe

Marianne Moyaert is full professor in the Research Unit Systematic Theology and the Study of Religions at KU Leuven, Belgium. Her research focuses on comparative theology, interreligious hermeneutics, and Jewish-Christian relations, with a special interest in the ritual dimensions of interreligious encounters. She is the editor-in-chief of the Currents of Encounter series and has held leadership roles in interfaith studies within the American Academy of Religion.Lieke Schrijvers is a postdoctoral researcher at the department of Beliefs and Practices, Faculty of Religion and Theology of VU Amsterdam, Netherlands. She is a cultural anthropologist specializing in the intersectional study of religion, gender, sexuality, and race. Her PhD dissertation resulted in the forthcoming book Conversion, Gender, Race. Schrijvers is the managing editor of Religion and Gender.Deniz Aktas is a PhD candidate in Religious Studies at VU Amsterdam, Netherlands and KU Leuven, Belgium. Through ethnographic work on Christian-Muslim couples in the Netherlands, he highlights how individuals respond to societal norms and tensions surrounding race, religion, and belonging, contributing to a deeper understanding of potential social change within Dutch society.Nella van den Brandt is a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the KU Leuven, Belgium. Her research areas are religion, gender and race in Europe; arts, literature, media and culture; and the sociology and anthropology of religion. In February 2024, she published the monograph Religion, Gender and Race in Western European Literature and Culture: Thinking through Religious Transformation.

• Acknowledgments List of Contributors Introduction. Mixedness, Religion, and the Politics of Intimate Life in Postcolonial Europe, Marianne Moyaert (KU Leuven, Belgium) Part I. Genealogies of Mixedness: Race, Religion and the Politics of Intimacy 1. Reframing Cultural Diversity: Towards a Theory of Identity Reconstruction in Mixedness, Francesco Cerchiaro (Radboud University, Netherlands) 2. Resistance, Race, Interracialized Relationships, Multiracialized Bodies and the Second World War in the Netherlands, Guno Jones (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands) Part II. Jewish–non-Jewish Families: Historical and Contemporary Practices 3. Jewish Identity and Antisemitism: Patrilineal Jews and Conditional Whiteness in Finland, Mercédesz Czimbalmos (ÅboAkademi University, Finland) 4. Narrating Mixedness: Oral Histories of Jewish–Catholic Couples in Occupied Poland, Magdalena Dziaczkowska (Lund University, Sweden) 5. Ritual (Non-)Participation amongst Nonreligious–Christian and Jewish–Christian Couples, Lieke L. Schrijvers (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands) Part III. Muslim–Christian Relations: Religio-racialization and Transnational Belonging 6. Legal Navigation in the Global South: Institutional Recognition of Mixed-Status Unions, Hindering Absence, and Asserting Rights, Laura Odasso (University of Paris VIII, France) 7. From the Margins to the Centre? Shifting Dynamics of Mixedness Among Dutch and Flemish Muslim Couples Making Hijra to Morocco, Nina ter Laan (University of Cologne, Germany) 8. Navigating Mixedness, Negotiating Belonging: Race, Religion, Secularity, and Christian–Muslim Intimacies, Deniz Aktas (VU Amsterdam, Netherlands and KU Leuven, Belgium) Part IV. Nonreligion, Gender, and Sexuality in Intimate Life 9. Women Leaving Religion: Negotiating Mixed Intimate Relationships, Nella van den Brandt (KU Leuven, Belgium) 10. Catholic Women and Non-Religious Partners in Flanders, Belgium: Navigating Challenges, Choices and Cultural Contexts, Eline Huygens (KU Leuven, Belgium)NotesIndex