The growing mediated visibility of Shiʿism and the (co)construction of a renewed Shiʿi publicness

Over the past two decades, Shiʿi Islam has become more visible as a world religion and the Shiʿi Muslim community a more recognisable and assertive demographic minority. This article theorises the growing visibility of Shiʿism at the onset of the 21st century and critically analyses this visibility as a mediated and socially constructed process. Drawing on Norbert Elias’ radically processual and radically relational sociology, it interprets the mediated visibility of Shiʿism in relation to the (co)construction of a renewed Shiʿi publicness in the making and to unintended processes of socioreligious change. The mediated visibility of Shiʿism and the (co)construction of a renewed Shiʿi publicness are analysed here at the crossroads of two key developments: the processual liberation and transnationalisation of the Arab heartlands of Shiʿism in Iraq following the historical disruption of 2003, and the manner in which Shi`ism is being mediatised to suit the global market of world religions.