Acts and practices of citizenship: Muslim women’s activism in the UK

Aleksandra Lewicki,Therese O’Toole

doi:10.1080/01419870.2016.1216142

Abstract

ABSTRACTDrawing on the growing literature on Muslim women’s activism, this paper explores grammars of action that frame political mobilizations of Muslim women in the UK. By taking a broad view of political activism, we identify acts and practices of citizenship through which Muslim women activists engage with, reinterpret and challenge social norms. The article critically engages with dominant readings of post-migration minorities’ political mobilization through the lens of citizenship regimes and draws attention to more processual and agency-centred perspectives on citizenship. We focus on two salient themes that Bristol-based Muslim activists were concerned with: mobilizing against violence against women, manifested in the anti-FGM campaign by Integrate Bristol, and attempts to re-negotiate the terms of participation in religious spaces, manifested in claims for more inclusive mosques. In both instances, mobilization was not confined to the local community or national level, but supported by and embedded in related transnational struggles.

Highlights

In January 2016 British Prime Minister David Cameron announced a £20 million language tuition fund to teach “isolated” Muslim women to speak English
Drawing on the growing literature on Muslim women’s activism, this paper explores grammars of action that frame political mobilizations of Muslim women in the UK
We focus on two salient themes that Bristol-based Muslim activists were concerned with: mobilizing against violence against women, manifested in the anti-Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) campaign by Integrate Bristol, and attempts to re-negotiate the terms of participation in religious spaces, manifested in claims for more inclusive mosques

Summary

Introduction

Work that explores acts (Isin 2009; Erel 2013) and practices of citizenship (Peró 2011; Neveu 2015), by contrast, recognizes that citizens shape the contours of citizenship by actively engaging in communal and public affairs, including in everyday ways, and in personal, domestic and community spaces These literatures account for less conventional or publicly visible political action, gendered enactments of citizenship, processes of political contention, and the significance of international and transnational struggles. To explore Muslim women’s political activism using this account of acts and practices of citizenship, our analytical frame focuses on (1) the significance of institutional citizenship, discursive and social regimes in shaping opportunities for Muslim women’s mobilization, (2) the identification of acts of citizenship which challenge, or seek to undo, existing arrangements, regulations and norms, and (3) practices of citizenship which are reflected in everyday forms of resistance or agency

Methodology

Conclusions