Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T01:01:04.904Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Negotiating Citizenship and Belonging

The Young Initiative Group

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2022

Nora Derbal
Affiliation:
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Get access

Summary

This chapter examines the relationships between volunteerism and religion, between youth activism and Islamic charity. During the reign of King ʿAbdallah, informal groups that advocated volunteering flourished among youth in Saudi Arabia. The rise of youth activism in Saudi Arabia is tied to the rise of social media.

At the heart of this chapter is the Young Initiative Group (YIG), an informal organization that grew out of the efforts of youth who distributed meals during Ramadan 2009. The chapter explores how the YIG negotiated alternative forms of belonging and community through charity work. The YIG embedded its volunteering practices within the religious obligation of alms and compassion for the needy. The group’s community approach was rooted in an Islamic ethics of care. This appeared to be both a reflection of the personal religiosity of some of its founders and strategic positioning vis-à-vis the authorities, given the initiative’s lack of legal status. The YIG’s rhetorical emphasis on family-like relations among volunteers, together with a critique of consumption patterns and references to Islamic norms of benevolence, created an apolitical profile of a group that promoted social reform.

Type
Chapter
Information
Charity in Saudi Arabia
Civil Society under Authoritarianism
, pp. 197 - 244
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×