Elastic Orthodoxy: The Tactics of Young Muslim Identity in the East End of London (2013)

Government and Opposition, 2004

The paper explores the construction of both Muslim and Islamist identities and the ways in which they interact, converge and diverge. This exploration is set against the background of debates on the nature of Islamism and its positioning vis-à-vis modernity and post-modernity. The paper argues that processes of modernity and post-modernity may be at work in the production of Muslim identities, but highlights the need to examine how different dimensions of identity formation such as socio-economic position, gender, age and lifestyle enter into the formation of Muslim selves. This is made necessary if we accept the premise of the sociality and historicity of religion.

Muslim Students, Education and Neoliberalism, 2017

In my study of young Muslims (aged 15 to 30) in Australia, Britain and America, I found their identities varied. They shifted from single to dual to multiple identities. I also found that identity formation was a flexible process, and various factors influenced identity formation. Some respondents in my study identified themselves with an exclusive Islamic identity, while others endorsed dual or multiple identities. But when the participants spoke of their dual or multiple identities, their Islamic identity was inadvertently sparked when they spoke of issues affecting Muslims in general. In this paper I discuss the factors with impact on the formation of an exclusive Muslim identity in the participants. I also observe the bicultural stance of the participants. This paper is based on forty-eight interviews conducted in Sydney, London and New York.

The issue of religious identity for Muslims living in Western societies has critical importance for both Muslim minority populations and the wider non-Muslim society they live in. For Muslims, living as a minority within a country naturally raises questions about identity. While the initial attempts of recent migrants’ preservation of identity manifests along ethnic lines, as second and third generation Muslims start to integrate, ethnic lines blur and protection of one’s religious identity comes to the front. While there are some Muslims who feel their identity is significantly different to that of the Western country they live in, there are also significant numbers of non-Muslims who believe that Muslims are not compatible with the West. Being a minority, therefore, brings with it double challenges and initiates a reaction to protect one’s Muslim identity while seeking to feel part of the Western country that they have come to know as their home. At this juncture, the Islamic identity threshold plays a key role in the establishment of the new identity, despite the challenges faced.

Ethnicities, 2015

With the rise of multiculturalism in Britain the visibility of religion, in particular Islam has increased. This growing religious diversity has created new contexts and affected young people's identity and transitions to adulthood. This article applies and extends Bourdieu's theory of habitus and social fields to a new area which is the study of how South Asian young Muslims living in England negotiate between the Muslim and British aspects of their identity. The set of individual dispositions (habitus), which originates in the family field under the influence of South Asian cultures and Islam, changes and is transformed when it comes into contact with non-Islamic fields. As with the concept of habitus, identity involves reconciling individual dispositions and structural conditions. Based on qualitative insights emerging from 25 semi-structured interviews with South Asian young Muslims, the article presents different strategies of identity negotiations exemplifying the constant and complex interplay between individual agency and the social world.

Interest in Muslim identities and citizenship has intensified with every renewed moral crisis precipitated by events such as the Rushdie affair, 9/11 and 7/7, generating questions about the dangers of too much diversity. Identity has also been at the centre of Muslim political struggles for equal citizenship in Britain, attracting critical evaluation from both progressive and conservative interlocutors who contest the reification of group boundaries that are inevitable with identity politics. In this paper I present a case study of identity politics by young adult British Muslims which I argue is based on a distinctly post 9/11 social movement aimed at turning negative difference into positive difference. Drawing on insights from both social movement theory (Della Porta and Diani, 2006; Melucci, 1995; 1996) and theories of multicultural citizenship (Modood, 2007, 2010; Phillips, 2007; Young, 1990, 2000) I will reveal how participants in my doctoral study recognised themselves as a collective group whilst highlighting the complexities of producing such a unifying entity. This paper also intends to demystify the salience of faith identities among British Muslims, highlighted in existing literature, by drawing attention to the political dimensions of such identity constructions and challenging some of the essentialist and damaging conclusions drawn from loyalty to Islam. Understanding the political positioning of Muslim faith identities underlines the continued importance and relevance of the politics of recognition based on group identities.

Routledge, 2011

Political activity is often addressed in terms of rational actor theory (RAT). We review RAT’s psychological assumptions and highlight the neglect of collective identity. In turn, we view the perception of ‘interest’ as contingent upon constructions of identity and explore how different characterizations of collective identity are organised strategically so as to shape people’s understandings of their interests and how they should act to realise them. Using examples taken from a study of British Muslims’ political activity we emphasise the contested and strategic dimension to identity construction and analyse how activists addressing the same constituency construe Muslim identity in different ways so as to promote different conceptions of collective interest. Specifically, we explore the contested invocations of Prophetic example in the definition of Muslim identity. The broader thrust behind this work is a critique of the sharp dichotomisation of Muslim and non-Muslim political activity. We maintain that essentially similar processes of identity construction underlie all attempts to organise collective sentiment and political action (including that comprising so-called ‘conventional’ electoralist politics in the West), and that conceiving of identity as a site of political struggle underscores the inadequacy of Orientalist characterizations of Muslim identity in terms of a singular, transhistorical essence.

2005

Islam is a minority religion in Europe; however, the number of Muslims is rapidly increasing and with this increase comes the issue of Muslim identity and what it means to a 'new look' Europe. Muslims like people in other religious groups come from different nationalities, social backgrounds and economic levels. Yet in countries across Europe, Muslims have established a common community, because of their 'affiliation' to Islam; their religion is their identity. Identity is an issue fundamental to all our lives. Each one of us is a complex collection of loyalties, associations, beliefs and personal perspectives. However, for many, the question of identity may seldom cause personal conflict or trauma as people live within established communities with shared beliefs and perspectives. For others, particularly those who live in fragmented communities or belong to minority or marginalised groups as in the case of the religious minority group discussed here it may be a question that pursues them all their lives. The most commonly accepted way of defining identity within Western society, as an individual within a liberal democracy, is discussed in this paper, followed by a consideration of minorities within those democratic communities and in particular one religious minority, Muslims, in the European context.