LEADER 05598nam 2200937Ia 450 001 9910787518803321 005 20240214191636.0 010 $a0-8122-0172-8 024 7 $a10.9783/9780812201727 035 $a(CKB)2670000000418323 035 $a(OCoLC)607067904 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebrary10748744 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000949531 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11559403 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000949531 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10998295 035 $a(PQKB)10127091 035 $a(MdBmJHUP)muse26835 035 $a(DE-B1597)449025 035 $a(OCoLC)1013950682 035 $a(OCoLC)1029823088 035 $a(OCoLC)1032679532 035 $a(OCoLC)1037979097 035 $a(OCoLC)1041986915 035 $a(OCoLC)1046607216 035 $a(OCoLC)1047007067 035 $a(OCoLC)1049620400 035 $a(OCoLC)1054880557 035 $a(OCoLC)979580042 035 $a(DE-B1597)9780812201727 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL3442209 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10748744 035 $a(CaONFJC)MIL682354 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC3442209 035 $a(EXLCZ)992670000000418323 100 $a20030807d2004 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurcn||||||||| 181 $ctxt$2rdacontent 182 $cc$2rdamedia 183 $acr$2rdacarrier 200 13$aAn imagined geography$b[electronic resource] $eSierra Leonean Muslims in America /$fJoAnn D'Alisera 210 1$aPhiladelphia :$cUniversity of Pennsylvania Press,$dc2004. 215 $a1 online resource (192 pages) 225 0 $aContemporary ethnography. 300 $aBibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph 311 0 $a1-322-51072-5 311 0 $a0-8122-1874-4 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. [163]-171) and index. 327 $tFront matter --$tContents --$tNote on Transliteration --$t1. Multiple Sites/Virtual Sitings: Ethnography in Transnational Contexts --$t2. Field of Dreams: The Anthropologist Far Away at Home --$t3. Icons of Longing: Homeland and Memory --$t4. Spiritual Centers, Peripheral Identities: On the Sacred Border of American Islam --$t5. I ? Islam: Popular Religious Commodities and Sites of Inscription --$t6. Mapping Women's Displacement and Difference --$t7. "We Owe Our Children the Pride": The Imagined Geography of a Muslim Homeland --$tNotes --$tReferences Cited --$tIndex --$tAcknowledgments 330 $aFor more than a decade a vicious civil war has torn the fabric of society in the West African country of Sierra Leone, forcing thousands to flee their homes for refugee camps and others to seek peace and asylum abroad. Sierra Leoneans have established new communities around the world, in London, Paris, New York, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. Yet despite the great geographic range of this diaspora and the diverse ethnic backgrounds among Sierra Leoneans settled in the same communities abroad, these Africans have come to understand and express their shared identity through religious rituals, social engagements, and material culture. In An Imagined Geography, anthropologist JoAnn D'Alisera demonstrates persuasively that the long-held anthropological paradigms of separate, bounded, and unique communities, geographically located and neatly localized, must be reconsidered. Studying Sierra Leonean Muslims living in greater Washington, D.C., she shows how these immigrants maintain intense and genuine community ties through weddings, rituals, and travel, across both vast urban spaces and national boundaries. D'Alisera examines two primary issues: Sierra Leoneans' engagement with their homeland, to which they frequently traveled and often sent their children for upbringing until the outbreak of the civil war; and the Sierra Leonean interaction with a diverse, multicultural, increasingly global Muslim community that is undergoing its own search for identity. Sierra Leoneans in America, D'Alisera observes, express a longing for home and the pain of disconnection in powerful narratives about their country and about their own displacement. At the same time, however, self and communal identity are shaped by a pressing need to affiliate in their adopted country with Sierra Leoneans of all ethnic and religious backgrounds and with fellow Muslims from other parts of the world, a process that is played out against the complex social field of the American urban landscape. 606 $aSierra Leonean Americans$zWashington (D.C.)$xSocial conditions 606 $aSierra Leonean Americans$zWashington (D.C.)$xEthnic identity 606 $aMuslims$zWashington (D.C.)$xSocial conditions 606 $aImmigrants$zWashington (D.C.)$xSocial conditions 606 $aTransnationalism 606 $aAfrican diaspora 606 $aEthnography 607 $aWashington (D.C.)$xEthnic relations 607 $aWashington (D.C.)$xSocial conditions 610 $aAfrican Studies. 610 $aAfrican-American Studies. 610 $aAnthropology. 610 $aFolklore. 610 $aLinguistics. 615 0$aSierra Leonean Americans$xSocial conditions. 615 0$aSierra Leonean Americans$xEthnic identity. 615 0$aMuslims$xSocial conditions. 615 0$aImmigrants$xSocial conditions. 615 0$aTransnationalism. 615 0$aAfrican diaspora. 615 0$aEthnography. 676 $a305.896/640753 700 $aD'Alisera$b JoAnn$01480436 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910787518803321 996 $aAn imagined geography$93697081 997 $aUNINA