Veiled Threats

As Muslim women continue to be a focus of media-led debate, Naaz Rashid uses original scholarship and empirical research to examine how Muslim women are represented in policy discourse and how the trope of the Muslim woman is situated within national debates about Britishness, the death of multiculturalism and global concerns over international terrorism

Book review: the Muslims are coming! Islamophobia, extremism, and the domestic war on terror by Arun Kundnani

The Muslims Are Coming! contains a wealth of research into and analysis of particular cases of counter terrorist activity and interventions which can challenge the established orthodoxies prevailing on both sides of the Atlantic. Naaz Rashid finds that Arun Kundnani’s work should be required reading for officials and Ministers in the Home Office, Department of Communities & Local Government, the Department of Education, and the Department for Homeland Security, as well as for political commentators everywhere

Veiled Threats

As Muslim women continue to be a focus of media-led debate, Naaz Rashid uses original scholarship and empirical research to examine how Muslim women are represented in policy discourse and how the trope of the Muslim woman is situated within national debates about Britishness, the death of multiculturalism and global concerns over international terrorism

Veiled threats: producing the Muslim woman in public and policy discourse in the UK

This thesis looks at how ‘the Muslim woman’ is produced in social policy discourses in the UK. It is a qualitative study based on interviews, observation and interpretive analysis of policy material. It focuses specifically on initiatives to empower Muslim women in order to combat terrorism which formed part of the UK’s Preventing Violent Extremism Agenda (Prevent). In January 2008 the National Muslims Women’s Advisory Group (NMWAG) was established and Local Authorities were encouraged to fund projects aimed at ‘empowering Muslim women’. The thesis begins by situating the research within a wider policy framework. At the national level it relates to debates on community cohesion, Britishness and multiculturalism; at the global level it relates to the UK’s involvement in the ‘war on terror’. The research examines local inflections in how the initiatives worked in practice, considering the impact of diversity within diversity. A key objective of these initiatives was to ‘give the silent majority a stronger voice’. The thesis considers the extent to which this objective was achieved, particularly in relation to the establishment of NMWAG. Through an analysis of the initiatives overseen by NMWAG it considers how empowerment is conceptualised and, therefore, also by definition, disempowerment. It suggests that empowerment is positioned as individualised in the form of neoliberal meritocratic aspiration. At the same time, however, it is collectivised in relation to religious affiliation; Islam emerges both as a source of disempowerment and as a potential solution. The thesis argues that these initiatives have worked to privilege religion at the expense of other salient axes of difference, particularly those embedded in socio economic and regional variations. Moreover, this privileging constitutes part of a broader gendered anti-Muslim racist rhetoric. Finally the thesis argues that deconstructing the trope of ‘the Muslim woman’ and attending to the differences between Muslim women opens up the possibility of building solidarities across religious boundaries and harnessing an “alternative politics of recognition”

The Burden of Conviviality: British Bangladeshi Muslims Navigating Diversity in London, Luton and Birmingham

This article considers the convivial turn in migration and diversity studies, and some of its silences. Conviviality has been conceptualised by some as the ability to be at ease in the presence of diversity. However, insufficient attention has been paid to considering who is affectively at ease with whose differences or, more particularly, what the work of conviviality requires of those marked as other vis-a-vis European white normativity. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with British Bangladeshi Muslims in London, Luton and Birmingham, we argue that a focus on ‘ease in the presence of diversity’ obscures the ‘burden of conviviality’ carried by some, but not others. We discuss three key types of burden that emerged from our data: the work of education and explanation, the work of understanding racism, and quite simply the work of ‘appearing unremarkable’

The burden of conviviality: British Bangladeshi Muslims navigating diversity in London, Luton and Birmingham

This article considers the convivial turn in migration and diversity studies, and some of its silences. Conviviality has been conceptualised by some as the ability to be at ease in the presence of diversity. However, insufficient attention has been paid to considering who is affectively at ease with whose differences or, more particularly, what the work of conviviality requires of those marked as other vis-a-vis European white normativity. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with British Bangladeshi Muslims in London, Luton and Birmingham, we argue that a focus on ‘ease in the presence of diversity’ obscures the ‘burden of conviviality’ carried by some, but not others. We discuss three key types of burden that emerged from our data: the work of education and explanation, the work of understanding racism, and quite simply the work of ‘appearing unremarkable’

Numerical Computation for Modified Cross Model Fluid Flow Around the Circular Cylinder with Symmetric Trapezoidal Cavities

This manuscript explores the flow features of the Modified Cross Model in a channel with symmetric trapezoidal cavities in the presence of a circular obstacle. The non-dimensional governing equations and model for different parameters are evaluated via a Galerkin Finite Element Method The system of non-linear algebraic equations is computed by adopting the Newton method. A space involving the quadratic polynomials (P2) has been selected to compute for the velocity profile while the pressure profile is approximated by a linear (P1) finite element space of functions. Simulations are performed for a wide range of physical parameters such as modified parameter (from 0.0 to 0.5), power-law index (from 0.5 to 1.5), relaxation parameter (from 1 to 3), and Reynolds number (from 10 to 40). For the case of a modified parameter (b) and relaxation parameter (λ), it is observed that the drag coefficient (CD) shows an increasing trend while the lift coefficient (CL) is changing sign at lower values of (λ), and then becomes positive at λ=3

Book Review: do Muslim women need saving? by Lila Abu-Lughod

Frequent reports of ‘honour’ killings, disfigurement, and sensational abuse have given rise to a consensus in the West, a message propagated by human rights groups and the media: Muslim women need to be rescued. With this book Lila Abu-Lughod aims to challenge this conclusion. Naaz Rashid concludes that this a richly evidenced and accessible book deconstructing simplistic culturalist explanations of any phenomena which pertain to Muslim women in all their diversity

Veiled threats: representing the Muslim woman in public policy discourses

As Muslim women continue to be a focus of media-led debate, Naaz Rashid uses original scholarship and empirical research to examine how Muslim women are represented in social policy discourse and how the trope of the Muslim woman is situated within national debates about Britishness, the death of multiculturalism and global concerns over international terrorism. Analysing the relevance of class, citizenship status, and regional differences, Veiled threats is a valuable addition to the burgeoning literature on Muslims in the UK post 9/11. It will be of interest to academics and students in public and social policy, race equality, gender, and faith-based policy

Romanian and Bulgarian migrants - it’s not immigration but xenophobia we should be discussing

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