Producing Authenticity, Difference and Extremism ; The Framing of Religious Converts in Dutch and Flemish Newspapers

Abstract In this article, we explore the framing of religious converts by Dutch and Flemish newspapers in the period 1991–2017. We focus on the differences and commonalities in ways of talking about religious conversions to Christianity and Islam. Our approach is to probe the ‘figure’ of the convert: How is the religious convert framed and understood? We present a typology of figures of the religious convert emerging from our material, including the ‘authentic seeker’, the ‘exemplary believer’, the ‘cultural other’, the ‘victim’, the ‘opportunist’ and the ‘extremist’. This approach allows us t... Mehr ...