Media and Muslim identity: Intersections of generation and gender1

Abstract

This paper investigates process of imagining identification among diasporic groups. Media consumption patterns among young men and women of Pakistani origins was used as an entry point into debates on identification. The analysis suggests that increasing interest of the youth in Islam cannot be ascribed to greater religiosity among them, or what is ascribed to by the press and some academics as the emergence of fundamentalism. The data collated indicates that the increasing use of Islam represents a shift in identification among the youth. The media consumption patterns among young Pakistanis indicates a propensity to consume English language media, primarily audio‐visual, in preference to ethnic language media. The increasing use of English indicates a linguistic shift among the youth of Pakistani origin and this underpins the increasing propensity by these young people to describe themselves as British Muslim rather than as Pakistani. The analysis indicates that religion became an important identity marker for younger people and that the external and internal context reinforced this process. Externally there were strong perceptions that Muslims were marginalized and excluded and that racial and Islamophobic ascriptions were being imposed on them. Internally discussions about Islam were interlocked in gender and generational debates. Islam became the vehicle by which generational dissatisfaction as well as debates affecting the lives of women was expressed in. Islamic symbols and metaphors was commonly used by young rebellious men while young women deployed Islamic arguments to persuade their parents to be more flexible over issues of education, dress, work and marriage. The data analysed strongly suggests that the increasing use of Islam by young people was not an indication of increasing religiosity but that they were becoming British.