ABSTRACT
The developments of Islamism have been examined in their dialectical relationships with broader changes in the political economy landscapes of Arab societies. The growing integration of contemporary Arab societies into the global economy has not resulted in a fading of religion, but in processes of re-articulation of religious frames. The processes of micro-ijtihad may reveal on-going processes of cross-fertilisation between the paradigms of contemporary global capitalism and Islamism. Both qualitative and quantitative, is needed to understand the relationships between ideology formation and the development of social classes, stemming from the theoretically informed persuasion that ideas do not float in a vacuum. Hence, an interdisciplinary approach, combining anthropological, philosophical and sociological perspectives, could highlight different, facets of processes of social construction of contemporary Islamic identities. The exploration into the relationships between the social construction of contemporary identities and political economy is indeed an important subject, rich in theoretical and practical consequences.
