Chapter Three. Who Are ‘We’? Social Imaginaries

Abstract

This chapter explores the social imaginaries offered to young Muslims and the different principles of inclusion and exclusion, values and objectives that these entail. It investigates the visions of community that the social imaginaries offer and the ways in which these visions are enacted and performed. The chapter discusses how gendered and generational differences structure the ways in which young Muslims position themselves within existing social imaginaries. It also explores how young Muslims in Oslo relate to 'the global Muslim community', 'Euro-Norwegian Muslims' and 'family and the ethnic diaspora', how they seek to realize some of the values and objectives associated with these imaginaries and how their social networks and relationships reproduce and cut across the different visions of community that these imaginaries offer.Keywords: Euro-Norwegian Muslims; social imaginaries; the global Muslim community; young Muslims