The Fear Factor: Developing A Framework Of Emotional Cognition For Understanding Muslim Americans\u27 Voting Behavior In 2016

Following voting for George W. Bush in 2000, research shows that Muslim Americans moved away from the Republican Party in 2004 in unprecedented numbers and continued to support the Democratic Party in subsequent elections. To explain Muslim Americans\u27 shifting voting preference most studies employ quantitative survey methods and examine associations between religious variables and partisanship. In this study, with a focus on the 2016 Presidential election, I analyze qualitative data gathered from 22 in-depth interviews in Memphis and develop a theoretical framework of emotional-cognition to interpret Muslim Americans\u27 voting behaviors. I find that emotion played an important role in Muslim Americans\u27 political participation and voter choice. I suggest that anti-Muslim rhetoric from then President-elect Trump and conservative pundits sent emotion signals of fear to Muslim American voters who, in turn, became afraid for their safety and livelihood, and such a fear drove them to vote for the Democratic Party

My Father Died this Summer: An Autoethnographic Reflection on Our Deadening Lives and Identities Held Captive

This is a critical autoethnographic essay in which the author reflects upon her life and childhood. The author considers the role of institutional memory in foreclosing on the reality of what her father suffered and endured as a Vietnam Veteran with an immigrant wife and non-white children. The author connects various theories in her contemplation of how dominant universalisms codify and label our identities, resulting in an estrangement of the self, from the self, and from those we are in closest relation with. This essay thus reflects on how our relational identities are held captive and seeks to encourage reflection on how to move forward toward a living existence

“UNDER HER FEET”: A CASE STUDY ON MOTHERHOOD DISCOURSE IN AN AMERICAN MUSLIM COMMUNITY

This dissertation explores U.S. American Muslim mothers’ communicative experiences of identity. This investigation was undertaken by a Muslim woman researcher and insider to the research topic and founded on the premise that discussions of motherhood within the mainstream U.S. American Muslim community do not center the perspectives and lived experiences of actual mothers. Findings of this study are based on interviews with nine Muslim women who shared detailed thoughts about what Islamic scripture says about motherhood, the role of culture, rights and obligations of different family members, and details about their day-to-day lives. Data was critically analyzed, and themes were identified within the context of Hecht’s Communication Theory of Identity (CTI) framework. Overall, the analysis indicated that women’s communal identities as Muslims inform their relationships with their children, their husbands, their community, and shape their relational, enacted, and personal maternal identities. This study showcases the usefulness and flexibility of CTI in examining identity and holds significant implications for understanding the relationship between ideology, identity, and personal agency. This research also contributes to studies on motherhood and U.S. American Muslim women

She Embodied: A Materialized Collective

This collaboratively written piece materializes the collective experiences of 14 students and an instructor in a graduate-level feminist research methods class in the United States. Instead of writing a traditional seminar paper, the class decided to continue our weekly discussions, during which we wrestled with both theory and practice, in text in a final paper. It just seemed like the best way to end our time together. In so doing, the she embodied collective furthers feminist writing practices that embrace uneasy collectives of varying viewpoints. This particular collective acknowledges our she, but recognizes, listens to, and celebrates all the powerful pronouns that create a collective. The collective offers a brief introduction and lengthy appendix to situate the piece. We do not adhere to a singular feminism in the piece. Consequently, our collective is a way of doing unity differently, of attending to and residing with the frictional thought within feminisms and finding that frictional thought as generative. We invite readers to join our collective, to think together across differences without reducing those differences to similarities