Muslim Diaspora in the West

Abstract

This excellent edited collection unpicks and disputes multifarious and intricate
 processes that underpin the homogenization, otherization, and vilification of
 immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, Muslim citizens, and individuals
 with a Muslim cultural background in the group of countries known as “the
 West.” It does so through presenting a selection of essays that offer an insight
 into the localized, day-to-day realities of people whose lives are currently defined
 by their link to Islam. The focus on gender, home, and belonging emphasizes
 the particular challenge faced by Muslim women: Their bodies are
 the battleground for the ideological wars fought by western governments on
 the one hand, and by political Islamists on the other (pp. 30-31).
 At the same time, media outlets and governmental policies portray and
 essentialize all Muslims as a single, uniform community defined exclusively
 by their Muslimness, thereby ignoring any of their differences based on “national
 origin, rural-urban roots, class, gender, language, lifestyle and degree
 of religiosity, as well as political and moral conviction” (p. 2). As all of the
 essays demonstrate, these concerns about representation remain valid, despite
 the critiques of historical and contemporary orientalism published by Edward
 Said over thirty years ago notwithstanding: Orientalism (1979) and Covering
 Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of
 the World (1981).
 The collection is a result of two conferences held in Toronto (2006) and
 Amsterdam (2008) to discuss these issues. It is organized around four themes:
 discourse, organizations, and policy; sexuality and family; youth; and space
 and belonging. The first theme is represented by different perspectives from
 the Netherlands, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Halleh Ghorashi
 analyzes the disempowering effects of supposedly “empowering courses” for
 immigrant women of Muslim backgrounds and indicates how women themselves
 critique the terms on which such courses are delivered. Fauzia Erfan
 Ahmed writes about the deteriorating situation for female American Muslim
 community leaders who are forced into silence despite a long history of female
 leadership since the time of slavery. Cassandra Balchin’s chapter focuses on
 Muslim women’s refusal to cede the discourse of their legal rights to both the
 governments and to patriarchal males within Muslim communities, who are ...