Muslims in Public and Media Discourse in Western Europe: The Reproduction of Aporia and Exclusion

This chapter scrutinizes the dominant public discourse in Western Europe. Drawing on examples from the UK, Germany, and France but also from the Netherlands, Denmark and Spain it illustrates the gradual transformation of discourse from an “exotic Islam” to a “threatening Islam” that endangers European values and safety and suggests that the combination of this “securitization” of Islam and the monopoly of the “Muslim voice” by radical Muslim activists leads to a vicious circle of misrecognition and enhancing the aporia of Europe's Muslims

Identifying a space for young Black Muslim women in contemporary Britain

Young Black Muslim Women (BMW) have complex, intersectional identities and exist at the margins of various identity groupings. Given this, members of the community can face societal relegation across, not only race and gender lines, but across religious ones, too. This paper explores the lived experiences of intragroup discrimination, identity and belonging in 11 young Black Muslim Women in the United Kingdom. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants and thematically analysed through the lens of intersectionality. The use of an intersectional framework facilitated an understanding of the manner in which the sample was multiply marginalised. Two key themes emerged from the interviews: firstly, around experiences of intragroup and intersectional discrimination and, secondly, around the challenges of responding to and coping with the negative effects of such discrimination. Participants discussed the cross-cutting nature through which they faced discrimination: from within the Black community; from within the Muslim community; and as a result of their gender. The non-exclusivity of these three identities result in constant encounters of discrimination along different dimensions to their personal identity. They also developed diverse means of coping with this marginalisation including drawing from religious beliefs and mobile identifications, i.e. performing different aspects of their identities in different contexts. The present study contributes to existing knowledge in its focus on an under-researched group and emphasises the negative effects of intragroup discrimination. The paper importantly highlights the diversity within the Black community and considers the (in)visibility of Black Muslim Women within society

Racialization of Muslim Students in Australia, Ireland, and the United States: Cross-cultural perspectives

The purpose of this qualitative cross-cultural case study was to better understand how Muslim students living in Australia, Ireland, and the United States navigated racism to identify ways in which school leaders and teachers can better address the structural, historical, and socioeconomic roots of racial injustice, discrimination, and ongoing oppression. Data collection was guided by a shared interview protocol that asked questions regarding family background, personal interests, identity, and friendships with a focus on their experiences of anti-Muslim racism in secondary schools. Findings suggested that Muslim students navigated racialization by (de)constructing their Muslimness, seeking voice, navigating between inclusion and exclusion, and responding to hate. This paper contributes to the bourgeoning literature exploring anti-Muslim racialization and makes a foundational empirical cross-cultural contribution with its identification of essential practices for anti-Muslim racism in schooling

From voice to voices: identifying a plurality of Muslim sources in the news media

This article identifies a qualitative change in the diversity of actors who represent Muslims in British news media. Hitherto, the literature discussing Muslims and the media has tended to characterize media organizations as institutions which portray Muslims in an essentialized, monolithic way. In contrast, I propose in this article that the process of representation is more complex, including greater agency and engaging a wider diversity of Muslims than the prevailing literature suggests. Sociological studies distinguish between official and unofficial sources who help determine the representations that journalists employ in their texts, and I apply this to Muslim communities in Glasgow. Using qualitative methods drawn from media production analysis, including participant-observation and ethnographic interviews, I identify a shift from a ‘gatekeeper’ model of representing the community to that of a plurality of sources, which reveals and insists on the diversity of Muslim communities and voices. I will show why a wider range of actors emerged to speak publicly, what differentiates them and how they position themselves as representatives of Muslims. This focus on producers and on source strategies brings fresh insights into a field dominated by content analysis and a ‘media-centric’ approach

Not entitled to talk: (mis)recognition, inequality and social activism of young Muslims

This article considers the relationship between (mis)recognition, inequality and social activism through the lens of young Muslims’ response to their positioning as ‘suspect communities’. It draws on qualitative empirical research to suggest that the institutionalisation of misrecognition, including through the preventative (‘Prevent’) arm of UK counter-terrorism strategy, may mobilise young Muslims to resist ‘suspect’ status and make claims to the right to equal esteem. This forms part of the motivation towards social activism that mitigates the harm inflicted by misrecognition. However, the particular historical and cultural form of the institutionalisation of misrecognition, which renders ‘preventing Prevent’ a priority for young Muslims, may compound their status subordination. Drawing on critiques of the politics of recognition, and contextualising findings in debates on racism, anti-Muslim attitudes and societal securitisation, the article concludes that fighting misrecognition with recognition politics mis-places the role of power in subject formation and constrains young Muslims’ political agency

Reaching out in a climate of negativity: perceptions and persistence among Muslim sources engaging with news media

The conceptions sources have of journalists influence whether and in what ways those sources engage with the news media. In this paper, I consider the contribution of Muslim sources to news in a context of perceived negativity. Scholarship on the content of British news stories about Muslims has found a consistently negative tone; my study examines the impressions of sources as co-producers of that content. My data come from qualitative fieldwork conducted in Glasgow, Scotland, studying relationships between journalists and Muslim sources through a combination of methods, with an emphasis on interviews. In these interviews, sources articulated an overwhelmingly negative conception of journalists and news organisations. I consider different constructions of negativity and what they suggest about how participants perceive the media, and I problematise the minority instances of positive conceptions. Finally, I evaluate why sources who identify as Muslim would bother participating in media production, given this perception of negativity. This discussion is informed by Couldry’s concept of ‘media meta-capital’ (Couldry 2003), which a macro-level power that imposes other fields of public life, and Schlesinger’s attentiveness to source strategies (Schlesinger 1990), a form of agency at the micro-level. This case study suggests that, whatever sources think of media coverage, their choice to contribute to its production is conditioned by strategic considerations, revealing development in the media’s relations with Muslims in Britain

Empire Found

Empire Found: Racial Identities and Coloniality in Twenty-First Century Portuguese Popular Cultures examines how the discourses and narratives of Portuguese imperial exceptionalism and Portuguese racial identity, developed during the last centuries of Portuguese settler colonialism continue to inform an array of cultural production and consumption in the four decades since decolonization. By examining a range of contemporary popular cultural production (literature, football, musical production, and celebrity culture) in critical conversation with intellectual production of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Empire Found examines how narratives of Portuguese racial hybridity and indeterminacy operate alongside ongoing structures of coloniality and white supremacy in the realms of cultural production. I argue that these implied or overt historical dialogues carried out through cultural production are integral to the very reproduction of the Portuguese nation-state apparatus, as well as its racial structures and claims to whiteness in the wake of decolonization and marginal integration into the European Union

Empire Found

Empire Found: Racial Identities and Coloniality in Twenty-First Century Portuguese Popular Cultures examines how the discourses and narratives of Portuguese imperial exceptionalism and Portuguese racial identity, developed during the last centuries of Portuguese settler colonialism continue to inform an array of cultural production and consumption in the four decades since decolonization. By examining a range of contemporary popular cultural production (literature, football, musical production, and celebrity culture) in critical conversation with intellectual production of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Empire Found examines how narratives of Portuguese racial hybridity and indeterminacy operate alongside ongoing structures of coloniality and white supremacy in the realms of cultural production. I argue that these implied or overt historical dialogues carried out through cultural production are integral to the very reproduction of the Portuguese nation-state apparatus, as well as its racial structures and claims to whiteness in the wake of decolonization and marginal integration into the European Union

Growing up in the shadow of the Holy Shroud. Muslims second generations in Italy

Rikuchchi, R. Growing up in the shadow of the Holy Shroud. Muslims second generations in Italy / R. Rikuchchi // Научный результат. Сер. Социология и управление. - 2020. - Т.6, №3.-С. 203-212. - Doi: 10.18413/2408-9338-2020-6-3-0-12. - Refer.: p. 211-212.The article will examine the intergenerational differences in the ethno-religious identity of Muslim Italians, and the findings will be incorporated into the broader literature on their second generation, acculturation, and religiosity. The study focuses on the following questions: a) how do Muslims in the second generation, as a group, express their religious identity, and b) are there any differences in the religious identity of the second-generation Muslims and their parents