Young Muslims and Exclusion - experiences of 'othering'

Research we completed in 2016 with 19 Muslim university students in London and Birmingham suggests they often feel exclusion most strongly after such events. The exclusionary experiences our participants faced took place on public transport, in the streets, at work, and at school and university. They included a combination of both subtle and direct experiences of exclusion; for example, from a London participant noticing that no-one would sit next to her on the tube to a Birmingham participant having a woman refuse to move her bag so she could sit down on the bus and directly accusing her of causing terrorism – both following the 2015 Paris attacks. The significance of ‘dressing Muslim’, particularly through wearing the hijab, emerged in the narratives of the young women we spoke to, with them often reporting to be perceived in ways that other them such as ‘foreigner’, ‘problematic’ and even as ‘extremist’. Other scholars have suggested that Muslim young people and communities struggle with these ‘othering’ discourses which are communicated through media and policy as well as experienced in their everyday lives (see Ahmed, 2015; Jeldtoft, 2012; Khan, 2013). Khan (2013) refers to this process as ‘theyification’ which he argues is consolidated by policy, practice and even research. The examples from our research are explored in two articles we have submitted to other journals: ‘“I just love the Queen” Positioning in Young Muslim Discourse’ (Pihlaja and Thompson, forthcoming in Discourse, Context and Media) and ‘Temporary liberties and uncertain futures: perceptions of young Muslim women on life in Britain’ (Thompson and Pihlaja, under review). Here, we explore an example that has not been included in these other articles. In the extract explored in detail below, Habiba (a pseudonym), an African Muslim of Somali heritage, explains her shock at being labelled a racist by another Black woman, and her feelings at being ‘othered’ by her because of her clothing

Estimated RR(case|G no E) and RR(case|G and E) from conditional logistic regression using cases and 3 pseudo-controls in 259 CP case-parent trios for 9 SNPs in <i>WDR1</i> considering maternal exposure to environmental tobacco smoke.

<p>TA: target allele and its frequency among parents of Asian ancestry.</p

SLC2A9: SNP × Environmental Tobacco Smoke.

<p>Estimated RR(CP|G no E) and RR(CP|G and E) from conditional logistic regression model considering SNP effects and their interaction with maternal exposure to ETS on 259 CP case-parent trios of Asian ancestry for fifteen SNPs in <i>SLC2A9</i>. P-values from the 2 <i>df</i> and 1 <i>df</i> LRT for GxE interaction are shown along the X axis.</p

Estimated RR(case|G no E) and RR(case|G and E) from conditional logistic regression using cases and 3 pseudo-controls in 259 Asian CP case-parent trios for 15 SNPs in <i>SLC2A9</i> considering GxE interaction between each SNP and maternal exposure to environmental tobacco smoke.

<p>TA: target allele and its frequency among parents of Asian ancestry.</p

Gender of isolated, nonsyndromic cleft palate (CP) cases in the International Cleft Consortium by recruitment site.

<p>*other sites include Maryland, Utah, and Korea.</p><p>**other ancestries include African American, Hispanic, Malay and others.</p

Gene × Environmental Tobacco Smoke Interaction among Asian CP Group.

<p>Double Manhattan plots for SNP effects ignoring maternal exposures (black dots in the lower half) and considering G and GxE interaction for environmental tobacco smoke on selected region on chromosome 4p among 259 Asian trios. Blue dots represent -log₁₀(P) from the 1 df test of GxE interaction alone; red dots represent -log₁₀ (P) from the 2 df test of G and GxE interaction. Dashed lines connect SNP showing this level of significance in one test considering GxE interaction with their corresponding P-value when interaction was ignored.</p

WDR1: SNP × Environmental Tobacco Smoke.

<p>Estimated RR(CP|G no E) and RR(CP|G and E) from conditional logistic regression model considering SNP effects and their interaction with maternal exposure to ETS on 259 CP case-parent trios of Asian ancestry for nine SNPs in <i>WDR1</i>. P-values from the 2 <i>df</i> and 1 <i>df</i> LRT for GxE interaction are shown along the X axis.</p

CP Asian ETS G×E Manhattan Plot.

<p>Manhattan plot with <i>P</i> values from likelihood ratio tests with 1 degree of freedom testing for GxETS interaction among 259 Asian CP trios (492,698 SNPs were left in Asian trios after quality control).</p