‘Being Modern and Modest’: South Asian Young British Muslims Negotiating influences on their identities.

With the rise of multiculturalism in Britain the visibility of religion, in particularly Islam, has increased. A 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: 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 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 young South Asian Muslims, the article presents different strategies of identity negotiations exemplifying the constant and complex interplay between individual agency and the social world

A fish out of water’? The therapeutic narratives of working class adults into higher education.

Young people from working class backgrounds remained mostly excluded from the widening educational participation, which characterised post-war Britain. Based on 20 semi-structured interviews part of a wider study about ‘Social Participation and Identity’ (2008-2009), this article explores the unusual learning trajectories of a group of working class adults born in 1958, who participated in higher education (HE) in a context where most people from the same socio-economic backgrounds did not. Drawing from Bourdieu’s social theory, findings suggest that different types of retrospective accounts were mobilised to reconcile working class habitus and the perceived habitus as adults. Most research on working class and higher education focuses on the experiences of youth. By contrast, the use of retrospective accounts of adults has enabled us to capture the implications that the educational trajectories have later in life. We consider these accounts part of wider narratives that we define ‘therapeutic’. Therapeutic narratives were employed to come to terms with the ambivalence between a sense of exclusion and the acknowledgment of the opportunities associated with a working class habitus accessing new social fields

Transnational boundaries of distinction: the social locations and subjectivities of Italian migrants in London

By using notions from race, class, migration and decolonial literature, this article explores the discursive strategies adopted by post-recession Italian migrants in London when trying to overcome the socioeconomic and cultural divides that separate them from the dominant British society, namely transnational boundaries of distinction. In doing so, it reflects on the nature of these boundaries, shedding light on how migrants’ subjectivities become connected to wider cultural and historical processes of coloniality, Europeans’ racialization and the contingent hierarchies of whiteness. The analysis suggests that to increase their proximity to the British majority, Italian migrants disclose strong beliefs in meritocracy and cosmopolitanism, perceived as inner features of Britain’s more “modern” value system. These findings contribute to new thinking about migrants’ social locations in host societies and support the development of theoretical tools, which are apt for making sense of migrants’ subjectivities in relation to nuanced forms of racialization and intersecting inequalities

South Asian Young British Muslims: Identity, Habitus and the Family Field

Since the 1950s the incoming flows of immigrants have deeply transformed the social composition of British society which has become increasingly multicultural. Amongst other minority groups the position of Muslims, who are the second largest religious group in the UK, is particularly difficult. The 9/11 and London bombings (2005) have increased the moral panic about Muslims perceived as ‘hard to integrate’ and a threat to western democracies. In this context, the thesis aims to explore the negotiation of religious and national identities amongst young British Muslims from South Asian backgrounds as well as the strategies used by their parents to transmit values. The thesis applies and extends Bourdieu’s (1930-2002) theory of habitus and social field to the study of identity negotiation and intergenerational transmission. In so doing, the study adopts a sociological perspective which is sensitive to individual action, and conceptualises identity as the process of individuals assimilating structural conditions, such as Islam and Britishness, to then produce subjective practices, tastes, values and beliefs. The research employs a mixed method approach which started with an in-school exploratory survey (N=560) with young people aged 14-18 years old from different ethnic and religious backgrounds in a inner London boroughs and in Oldham, followed by semi-structured interviews (N=52) with South Asian British Muslim young people and their parents. Visual methods in the form of photographs taken by young people were used as prompts during their interviews. The thesis contributes to the understanding of identity construction in the context of South Asian Muslim communities in the UK. Findings from the survey confirm that Islam was the main source of self-definition for Muslim young people, while qualitative analysis suggests that this emphasis on religion originated in the family field. The concept of Islamic capital was developed to understand the specific role of Islam as a resource for parenting. However, Islam was not the only focus in the family field, and in line with other research on migration, results highlight the importance of education for social mobility within South Asian Muslim migrant families from different socio-economic backgrounds. Finally, the study illustrates that multiple identities are not necessarily exclusive, but rather negotiated through strategies such as those adopted by British Muslim young people and embodied by three emerging typologies: conforming and contesting parental culture and Islam, and combining identities. In the context of multicultural Britain, these findings show how the traditional notions of national identity and belonging are put into question and transformed by the development of new and fluid identities

Populism and migration in local contexts: the case of Southern Italy

Amid the surge of populism across the globe, migration is very often politicized, and migrants accused of causing the loss of jobs and the underperformance of welfare and health services. Right-wing populists exacerbate these claims and capitalize on thriving racism and xenophobia. So far, the scholarship’s emphasis on global populism has tended to overlook the importance of local experiences in filtering these dynamics and shaping voters’ perceptions. This article examines Southern Italy, arguing that migration plays a relevant role in fostering the appeal of populist platforms, but in relation to socioeconomic inequalities and the history of the local area

'A fish out of water?' The therapeutic narratives of class change

Young people from working class backgrounds remained mostly excluded from the widening educational participation which characterised postwar Britain. Based on 20 semi-structured interviews which were part of a wider study about ‘Social Participation and Identity’ (2008–2009), this article explores the unusual learning trajectories of a group of working class adults born in 1958, who participated in higher education (HE) in a context where most people from the same socio-economic backgrounds did not. Drawing on Bourdieu’s social theory, the findings suggest that different types of retrospective accounts were mobilised to reconcile working class habitus of origin and the perceived habitus as adults. Most research on working class and higher education focuses on the experiences of youth. By contrast, the use of retrospective accounts of adults has enabled the study to capture the implications that the educational trajectories have later in life. The authors consider these accounts a part of wider narratives that they define ‘therapeutic’. Therapeutic narratives were employed to come to terms with the ambivalence produced by social mobility. Therefore, respondents were negotiating the sense of exclusion attached to class change, and the acknowledgement of the opportunities associated with a working class habitus accessing new social fields viaeducation

The impact of learning on employability

The Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion (Inclusion), the British Market Research Bureau (BMRB) and the Institute for Employment Studies (IES) were commissioned by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) in 2007 to undertake a survey on the impact of learning on employability. This report presents the key findings of the survey. The survey investigated the impact and benefits of general learning in further education (FE) on: the economic status of workless individuals - their progression into work and off benefits; and the personal impact of learning - in terms of improving skills and increasing confidence. Approximately 10,000 learners were interviewed by telephone from June to August 2007. They had all undertaken an FE course which completed in 2005-06, and all were eligible for fee remission due to receipt of workless benefits. Ten per cent of the sample were working less than 16 hours a week when their course started, and all were aged between 20 and 55. The key findings were that nearly four in 10 (38 per cent) of learners who were claiming workless benefits at the start of their FE course have worked since finishing their learning and one in three learners have moved into work and are no longer claiming workless benefits. Employment outcomes are less positive for learners with multiple disadvantages. However, those with multiple disadvantages do benefit from a positive impact of learning in terms of improved communication skills, improved employability skills and increased confidence

Doxorubicin-Mediated Cardiotoxicity: Role of Mitochondrial Connexin 43

Doxorubicin is the highly effective anthracycline, but its clinical use is limited by cardiotoxicity and consequent dysfunction. It has been proposed that the etiology of this is related to mitochondrial dysfunction. Connexin 43 (Cx43), the principal protein building block of cardiac gap junctions and hemichannels, plays an important role in cardioprotection. Recent reports confirmed the presence of Cx43 in the mitochondria as well. In this study, the role of mitochondrial Cx43 was evaluated 3 or 6 h after Doxorubicin administration to the rat heart cell line H9c2. Pharmacological inhibition of Hsp90 demonstrated that the mitochondrial Cx43 conferred cardioprotection by reducing cytosolic and mitochondrial reactive oxygen species production, mitochondrial calcium overload and mitochondrial membrane depolarization and cytochrome c release. In conclusion, our study demonstrates that Cx43 plays an important role in the protection of cardiac cells from Doxorubicin-induced toxicity