White Habitus Among Polish White Female Converts to Islam

Abstract

AbstractThis article addresses the question of how the racial habitus of Polish White female converts (PWFCs) to Islam is performed in different social settings. We draw from in-depth interviews with 35 PWFCs living in Poland and the United Kingdom. While the notion of habitus has been used to analyze socialization into Islam, racial habitus has not been analyzed in relation to White converts to Islam. We argue that White habitus is an important concept that elucidates racial positioning among White converts in multiracial Muslim settings. Whiteness, often indexed in the data as “Europeanness,” is foundational for the PWFC identity. Furthermore, we extend the understanding of how Whiteness operates in Eastern Europe through the analysis of the White habitus among those who occupy non-normative places in racial and religious hierarchies. Thus, this article contributes to a growing body of scholarship on decentering Whiteness in Eastern Europe.