Religiosity, integration and sport : Muslim women playing Australian Rules football

This article explores the phenomenon of practising Muslim women playing Australian Rules football (Aussie Rules). While Western liberal-democratic governments have considered Islamic religiosity to be contrary to Western liberal-democratic values and therefore detrimental to integration, scholars and governments alike have regarded sport as a major tool for enhancing social cohesion and increasing social capital for ethnic minorities and marginalised groups. In-depth interviews with thirteen members of the Auburn Giants women’s football team demonstrate the limits of conceptualising sport participation in binarised terms of “integration” or “exclusion”, with findings providing nuanced insights into how Muslim women perceive the relationship between religion and playing competitive sport. The women interviewed saw no compromise between their religious adherence and their sporting commitments and ambitions to play competitive Aussie Rules. While religion was found to guide participants’ morals and behaviour, it did not feature as a significant factor in their decision-making to play Aussie Rules. Through discussions about playing the game, sports uniforms and family perceptions, participant responses show that Islamic religiosity comes in different shapes and forms. This research advances the interdisciplinary study of sport, religion and culture by deepening understandings of the relationship between gender, Islamic religiosity and sport participation

Promoting ‘national values’ in citizenship tests in Germany and Australia : a response to the current discourse on Muslims?

This chapter looks at the major changes in the citizenship legislation of Australia and Germany since 2005 and the political discourse surrounding these changes. Despite the fact that Germany and Australia have long had very different migration policies and concepts of citizenship, their naturalisation laws appear to be converging. Whereas in 1999 the residence requirement for naturalisation in Germany was 10 to 15 years and in Australia two years, the requirements are now six to eight years and four years respectively in 2008. Furthermore, the introduction of a nation-wide citizenship test occurred less than one year apart – on 1 October 2007 in Australia and on 1 September 2008 in Germany. The changes in both countries appear to denote a movement towards creating a more exclusive citizenship, one that privileges the ‘deserving’ and ‘desirable’. In addition, there has been a strong emphasis on promoting ‘national values’ through the process of taking citizenship. These trends appear to reflect the increasing concern about Muslims and about the compatibility of Islam with liberal democratic values

Talking about ‘Australian values’ in the Australian parliament : how politicians contest culturalist racism

In the last decade, mainstream political definitions and the language used in debates about cultural integration have shifted in such a way that it has become more difficult to talk explicitly about racism. Since racist attitudes are increasingly disguised under proxies of differences in culture, lifestyle, or values, recognising and contesting racism becomes a complex task. This article uses critical discourse analysis to investigate the Australian Labor Party’s response to Coalition Government rhetoric about the necessity of migrants adopting ‘Australian values’ in proposals for new citizenship laws. Focusing on speeches about the Australian Citizenship Bill 2005 that sought to implement stricter requirements for naturalisation, this article identifies strategies that opposition politicians used to challenge the government’s usage of ‘Australian values’ in a new citizenship regime. Argumentation schemes the speakers used included the framing of migrants as already adhering to ‘Australian values’, pointing out the hypocrisy of a government which does not abide by its own values, and critiquing the content of the government’s ‘Australian values’. Although the speakers depicted immigrants from non-English speaking backgrounds in an overwhelmingly positive light to try to counteract culturally essentialist claims, there was a failure to question the hegemonic discourses of ‘Australian values’ that define certain migrant groups as unwilling to integrate or contribute to Australian society

Exclusive and inclusive constructions of ‘Australia’ in the Australian parliament

Due to the way racism is now hidden behind discourses of ‘cultural difference’ rather than relying on beliefs of biological inferiority, capturing instances of racism has now become a difficult task. The discourse of ‘difference’ in recent times has strongly manifested itself as exclusion from a discursively constructed nation: borders of the nation are redrawn along cultural essentialist lines so that undesirable ‘others’ are always excluded. Taking data from Australian parliamentary debates on immigration and citizenship during 2006-2007, this paper uses critical discourse analysis to explore how politicians discursively (re)construct borders of ‘Australia’ to either exclude or include immigrants. This paper argues that exclusion and inclusion in national constructions are more conducive ways of seeing how racism and anti-racism towards immigrants are enacted

Islamophobia, Muslimophobia or racism? : parliamentary discourses on Islam and Muslims in debates on the minaret ban in Switzerland

There is currently no clarity on what Islamophobia covers: Does it relate to hostility towards Islam, hostility towards Muslims or racism against Muslims? While some argue that the term Muslimophobia should replace Islamophobia due to the hostility being directed at Muslims as people, rather than Islam the religion, it is not clear whether this is the case in practice. This article examines expressions of Islamophobia and Muslimophobia and their relationship to racism in Swiss parliamentary debates on banning the construction of minarets in Switzerland. It demonstrates that Islamophobia and Muslimophobia are different from each other but mostly occur in tandem. Furthermore, Muslimophobia can be but is not always a form of racism due to the ‘manipulation of culture’ in which proponents of the ban can de-essentialise, as well as essentialise, cultural traits to argue that Muslims can become integrated if they fulfil certain conditions. Such conditions can, however, be easily manipulated to continually exclude undesirable ‘others’. The article contends that the minaret ban initiative relied heavily on the ‘slippery slope’ fallacy to make both Islamophobic and Muslimophobic arguments, that is, accusing Muslims and Islam of transgressions against Swiss society that have not even occurred

Anti-racist Discourse on Muslims in the Australian Parliament

Anti-racist Discourse on Muslims in the Australian Parliament examines anti-racist discourse in contemporary Australian politics, in particular, how politicians contest and challenge racism against a minority group that does not constitute a traditional ‘race’. Using critical discourse analysis, this book firstly deconstructs the racist, xenophobic and discriminatory arguments against Muslims. Secondly, it highlights the anti-racist counter-discourse to these arguments. Since blatantly racist statements are less common nowadays, the book focuses on manifestations of ‘culturalist racism’. It does this by investigating how talk about Muslims positions them as not Australian or as not belonging to Australia – the book takes such ‘discursive exclusion from the nation’ as one of the most widespread forms of ‘culturalist racism’ in Western liberal-democracies. In addition to contributing to the theoretical discussion on the relationship between Muslims, racism and anti-racism, the book expands on methods that apply critical discourse analysis and the discourse-historical approach by providing a practical guide to analysing anti-racist political discourses

Representations of Sharia in three global cities : Sydney, New York and Geneva 2008–2013

Drawing on methodologies used to analyse the negative portrayals of new religious movements in the press, this article analyses the way Sharia has been reported in key newspapers in Sydney, New York and Geneva from 2008 to 2013. It differentiates between perceptions of Islamic law as practised in these global cities, as well as in other countries, and examines the different levels of perception. The article also investigates portrayals and perceptions of ‘good’ Sharia (as in Islamic banking) as opposed to ‘bad’ Sharia (as in family and criminal law). It discovers that Sydney’s newspapers are more sympathetic than those in New York and Geneva towards Sharia-compliant finances. It then argues that the move towards a more Muslim consumer market in the media is not a homogenous process among Western global cities

Challenging color blindness in sport : women deconstructing whiteness

Intersections within and between sport, race, and gender, underpinned by critical whiteness theory are here elucidated and problematized. In an apparent “post pandemic world” where sports at the individual and community level are positioned as contexts through which communities can be strengthened, and hegemonic power relations and their normalizing affects might be meaningfully challenged. Drawing from an intersectionality lens and forwarding a strengths and hope perspective, the proceeding chapter offers a critical engagement with case examples of how racial and gendered stereotypes are constructed, reproduced, and increasingly challenged and dislodged in recreational and elite sport settings. Positioned as “bright lights” these examples also attend to how more inclusive sport futures might be imagined and realized. Through the chapter three recreation/sport-focused case studies are presented. The first case the “Matildas” (the Australian women’s football team) is considered through engaging with and elevating the voices and experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders players and those with culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. While player diversity and inclusion are celebrated, the scrutinization of non-white athletic bodies remains deeply problematic. In the second case, notwithstanding the Commonwealth Games’ complex racial and gendered histories, we explore how the Games might provide an impactful platform for reconciliatory efforts where strengths can be shared and hopes realized. The final case considers the “Swim Sisters,” a group in Sydney consisting mainly of Muslim women. The group discusses navigating and pushing against the boundaries of what is considered the “norm” in Australian swimming making space in what is a traditionally White Anglo domain

Advantages, challenges and contradictions of the transformative nature of telework : a review of the literature

Information and communication technologies (ICT) have had, and continue to have, a profound impact on the way work is organized, undertaken and managed by organizations and their employees. Telework, in particular, allows employees to work anywhere and anytime. These developments are not simply extending earlier temporal and spatial boundaries of work; they are profoundly changing the nature of work itself. To gain a better understanding of the changing nature of work and the implications for organizations and employees, we conducted a literature review that identified in total 24 different advantages and challenges of telework. We also show that there are inherent contradictions among these advantages and challenges, thus outlining interesting questions and opportunities for future research and alerting practitioners to possible dilemmas arising from telework arrangements