1,721,149 research outputs found
Citizenship, identity & the politics of multiculturalism: the rise of Muslim consciousness
No full textThe emergence of public Muslim identities is widely considered to be one of the most interesting and pressing sociological and political concerns of the day. With cases of Muslim identity claims-making in European nation-states, and a global geo-political context that is marked by issues of international terrorism and Muslim radicalism, the interest in Muslim identities, and their interaction with nation-state governance, has assumed a profound significance in research and policy agendas across European politics and society.
In order to understand current trends in the adoption and espousal of Muslim identities in Britain, not only is it necessary to obtain a historical understanding of their development through British approaches to minority integration. It is also necessary to look at forms of 'consciousness' that are informing and shaping the assertion of Muslim identities in Britain, and what this can tell us about their future orientation. This book develops a novel sociological and political understanding of Muslim identities in Britain, which is elaborated through case studies of Muslim mobilizations over issues of education, discrimination legislation, media representation, as well as a consideration of the local impact of global concerns surrounding issues of terrorism and Muslim radicalism
Identity articulations, mobilisation and autonomy in the movement for Muslim schools in Britain
No full textMuslim schools in Britain have emerged as a highly salient issue that at times reinforces, and at other times cuts across, political and philosophical divides. It therefore comes as some surprise to learn that despite a general proliferation of literature on Muslims in Britain very little research has explicitly investigated how increasingly salient articulations of Muslim identities connect with the issue of Muslim schooling. To be sure, and notwithstanding sustained Muslim mobilizations for Muslim schools within and across diverse Muslim communities,
surprisingly little is known of how these mobilizations are being undertaken, what is being sought, and, more generally, why Muslim schools are deemed to be an important issue for different Muslim communities. By drawing upon two years of fieldwork, this article addresses these questions through the use of primary interviews with Muslim educators and stakeholders concerned with voluntary aided schooling, including teachers and Muslim educational associations,
alongside other case study instruments including field notes, and documentary and policy analysis. The article concludes that through an engagement with a range of
established educational conventions, norms, regulations and precedents, the testimonies of Muslim educators betray emerging syntheses between faith requirements and citizenship commitments that are seeking out negotiated, and
reciprocal, British Muslim identities<br/
The politics of voluntary and in voluntary identities: are Muslims in Britain an ethnic, racial or religious minority?
No full textThe denial that racism operates against Muslims qua Muslims has permeated public and media discourse of late. Intellectuals, commentators and legislators from across the political spectrum have explicitly rationalized this
position by distinguishing involuntary racial identities from voluntary religious identities. Meer explores the nature of Muslim identity vis-a`-vis the involuntary and
voluntary dichotomy before examining the consequences of recognizing some ‘racial’ identities in anti-discrimination formulas while ignoring others. This is followed by a short case study of some of the ‘commonsense’ arguments about race
and religion that surrounded the proposed incitement to religious hatred legislation in Britain. The findings suggest that Muslims in Britain are disadvantaged by the
operation of a ‘normative grammar’ of race that materially (in terms of legal instruments) and discursively (in terms of public and media comment) treats their racialization with less seriousness than it does that of other minorities
Less equal than others? Thirty years after the Race Relations Act
No full textEquality for British Muslims lies beyond race and religion. It's time to bring the law up to date. It is now over 30 years since the introduction of the third Race Relations Act (RRA) cemented state sponsorship of race equality. Alongside its broad remit spanning public and private institutions, a recognition of indirect discrimination and the imposition of a statutory public duty, it also created the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) to assist individual complainants and monitor the implementation of the Act
The impact of European Equality Directives upon British anti-discrimination legislation
No full textThis article examines the adoption of EC directives derived from Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam (1997). It argues that these directives are party to important changes in established legal responses to racial and religious anti-discrimination in Britain. It maps the interaction of specific British approaches and generic EC directives, and assesses what broader implications these directives may be tied to politically, as well as legally, with respect to Human Rights discourses, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), and a Single Equalities Act (SEA). The article also reflects on whether Britain’s approaches are being ‘Europeanised’
'Get off your knees’: print media public intellectuals and Muslims in Britain
No full textThis article examines perceptions of British-Muslims deployed by ‘‘print media public intellectuals’’(PMPI). It argues that PMPI embody a particular type of ‘‘mediatized intellectual’’ whose public discourse on Muslims is crucial in determining how issues emerging from the politics of
multiculturalism are understood. Adopting a ‘‘theory of argumentation’’ (Richardson, 2001) derived from a critical discourse analysis methodology (CDA), it investigates the political content of messages disseminated by (1) conservative nationalist and (2) secular liberal PMPI through their newspaper opinion columns. The findings suggest that PMPI argumentation ranges from an overt
hostility to a qualified discrimination (the former through exclusive accounts of belonging and the latter through a combative/civilising liberalism), and that*/moreover*/there is a convergence between these two positions in their anti-Muslim sentiment and desire to regulate the lives of
ethnic Others (Hage, 1998). There are four parts to this article: the first part outlines what a public
intellectual is and where PMPI stand in relation to this; the second part discusses some Muslim attempts to elicit forms of recognition from the state under a rubric of multiculturalism; the third part outlines the chosen CDA schema of analyses and PMPI output; and the fourth part concludes by encouraging us to recognise and examine further the importance of PMPI argumentation in
public discours
Multiculturalism, interculturalism and citizenship
Full text linkIn this chapter we engage with some recent authors who believe that an alternative to multiculturalism must be sought in order to understand and live with diversity. These authors are not anti-diversity, on the contrary, but they share the view that multiculturalism is no longer a persuasive intellectual or policy approach. For example, the Council of Europe’s White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue (2008) included the finding that the majority of practitioners and NGOs across Europe had come to the conclusion that multiculturalism was no longer fit for purpose, and needed to be replaced by a form of interculturalism. Similar views were expressed in the UNESCO World Report, Investing in Cultural Diversity and Intercultural Dialogue (2008). More recently still, Ted Cantle (2012: 2) has described interculturalism ‘as an opportunity to replace multiculturalism as a conceptual and policy framework’, while Maxwell et al (2012: 429) maintain that ‘Interculturalism represents a gain over Multiculturalism while pursuing the same set of most uncontroversial political ends…’. These statements therefore invite the question: in what ways – if at all - is interculturalism different, substantively or otherwise, from multiculturalism
Political cultures compared: the Muhammad cartoons in the Danish and British press
No full textOne outcome of the Muhammad cartoons controversy has been an
opportunity for comparative critical examination of public discourse on conceptions of citizenship and belonging vis-à-vis Muslim minorities in different national contexts. In this article, we focus upon the press reaction in two north-western European countries that at first glance promise to offer radically different cases. While Britain is a formerly imperial power where ‘legitimate’ public articulations of the collective ‘we’ must take stock of the sensibilities in this diverse inheritance, Denmark’s emergence as a modern constitutional state is perceived to be premised on a cultural, linguistic and ethnic homogeneity. It would only be fair to anticipate, then, that any comparison of press discourse on matters of religious minority toleration and respect for difference would herald very different outcomes attuned to
these traditions. Yet this article shows that, on closer inspection, Jyllands-Posten’s more ‘radical’
approach marked a departure from other Danish newspapers in a manner that left it relatively isolated, and that the self-restraint shown by the British press in not
reprinting the cartoons was far from universally supported, and subject to significant internal criticism. Indeed, the press discourse on both countries cast the reaction to the cartoons controversy by Muslims themselves as a sign of failed integration, and each moreover stressed a need for civility and respect – even where there was disagreement over the kinds of ‘dialogue’ that should take place. Nevertheless, significant divergences and cleavages remained, and the explanation for these differences rests not only on Britain’s more ‘multicultural’ traditions, but also the experiences of the Rushdie affair and the subsequent debate that had already taken place in Britain. What is striking is the ways in which the Danish discourse
appears to be plotting a course that is not that radically different from one taken in the British case, specifically the extent to which a recognition of religious minority
sensibilities needs to be offset with a civic incorporation that is cast in interdependent terms in a way that is inclusive of – and not alienating to – Muslims<br/
- …
