'Hello, Jav, Got a New Motor?': Cars, (De)Racialization and Muslim Identity

yesThe car is a symbolic presence at the heart of the everyday experience of multi-ethnic coexistence. Exploring the potential significance of car ownership among members of the Pakistani/Muslim population in Bradford has an inherent interest and virtue, but more acutely, it can shed light on social relations where class, gender, religion and ethnicity intersect. The ‘young Asian/White/Muslim/Black male driver’ has acquired a certain meaning and reputation which has largely negative associations across Britain. However, once stereotypes such as the ones at play in the diary entry above are unpicked and engaged with, meaning becomes more nuanced and complicated, but no less vital. Indeed, the research upon which this paper is based suggests that car culture offers insights: first, into how some aspects of broader ‘British Muslim’ identity are framed; and second, that often negative, exoticized and racialized aspects of identity can be detuned and thus made less potent markers of racialized thinking

Ethnic Diversity and Creative Urban Practice : The Case of Bradford’s Mughal Garden

This paper examines the significance of the construction of a Mughal garden within a nineteenth-century civic park in the northern English city of Bradford. We explore the semiotic environment of the streetscape in the surrounding inner city area of Manningham in which Lister Park is located. The framing discourse surrounding Manningham has defined it as a multiethnic area with a reputation of suffering from inner-city decline and ethnic tension. This context is significant for any reading of the streetscape within this area. It is argued that the signage, street furniture and local inhabitants / residents give this area a strong sense of its predominantly Pakistani heritage population. At the same time, the architecture in this area reflects both the nineteenth-century heritage of industry and Christianity into which more recently there have arrived visible aspects of Muslim culture and lifestyle. It is into this territorial context that the local council placed a contemporary representation of a traditional Mughal garden. The article explores the background of this process and examines the cultural symbolism and value of this garden for its varied users

Young British Pakistani Muslim women’s involvement in higher education

YesThis article explores the implications for identity through presenting a detailed analysis of how three British Pakistani women narrated their involvement in higher education. The increased participation of British South Asian women in higher education has been hailed a major success story and is said to have enabled them to forge alternative, more empowering gender identities in comparison to previous generations. Drawing on generative narrative interviews conducted with three young women, we explore the under-researched area of Pakistani Muslim women in higher education. The central plotlines for their stories are respectively higher education as an escape from conforming to the ‘good Muslim woman’; becoming an educated mother; and Muslim women can ‘have it all’. Although the women narrated freedom to choose, their stories were complex. Through analysis of personal ‘I’ and social ‘We’ self-narration, we discuss the different ways in which they drew on agency and fashioned it within social and structural constraints of gender, class and religion. Thus higher education is a context that both enables and constrains negotiations of identity

Ethnographic encounters and literary fictions: crossover and synergy between the social sciences and humanities. Statement in support of application for Doctor of Philosophy by published works (1998-2012)

Over the past 14 years, working independently and with other original thinkers, I have produced works that have on two fronts contributed to the evolving understanding of ethnic relations in contemporary Britain. The first is around social/community cohesion, media and representation as well as counter-terrorism policy as explored through the social sciences. The second domain covering the same themes is couched within the humanities, in particular, the production of literary fiction

In-group identity and the challenges of ethnographic research

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Social cohesion and counter-terrorism: a policy contradiction?

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Lived Diversities: Space, Place and Identities in the Multi-Ethnic City

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The making and representation of Muslim identity in Britain: conversations with British Muslim elites

The common nomenclature of ethnicity, race and colour has been found wanting in theorising and dealing with the Muslim presence in Britain. This study of 24 prominent British Muslims - including political, policy and academic/intellectual ‘elite’ – explores the making and representation of Muslim identity in Britain. We explore this through three considerations: Muslimness as a ‘master status’; leadership and representation in relation to British Muslims; and the public performance of Muslimness during ‘key moments’