British Muslim Women Research Articles

Geographies of Inclusion/Exclusion: British Muslim Women in the East End of London

This paper takes a look at the place-based multicultural construction of ‘Banglatown’ in the East End of London, and asks what meaning it offers for young Bangladeshi women growing up in Spitalfields. It begins by bringing together theoretical debates on identities, youth, gender and space, and goes on to ground the discussion on Bangladeshis and Islam in the East End. The conclusions suggest that there are new challenges to place-based constructions like ‘Banglatown’ that show such places to be masculine and subtly prohibitive for Bangladeshi women. The limits of multiculturalism are thrown wide open from two unlikely quarters – from young women who are pressurised into vacating that space, and others who take issue with its secular, Bengali based identity, preferring a transcendental identity like Islam. The growing attention on Muslims in non-majority Muslim countries (e.g. Britain) has sharply focused on women's mobility and the visibility in veiling practices, and progressively over time visibility has come to denote multiple meanings and perceptions in spheres of representations. How does this growing visibility sit with the pressures and practices of selling ‘places’ and the representation of commodities and multicultures as the East End competes for mega city status? Building on geographic thinking on space the research charts some direction towards a gendered understanding of regeneration processes taking place in the East End of London, and more widely in different parts of the United Kingdom. The arguments made in the paper point to the limits of multiculturalism in accommodating young feminine identities in Spitalfields’ redevelopment.

Cosmopolitan belonging and diaspora: second-generation British Muslim women travelling to South Asia

This paper traces the ways in which British born Muslim women self-identify with Britain and South Asia. More specifically, the article explores the ways in which the young women express their sense of belonging and convey cosmopolitan identities while they self-reflect upon their travels to their parents' homeland. The paper argues that the women do not view Britain and South Asian nations in discrete terms along religious and cultural dimensions but with frequent visits in different stages in their lives come to understand these nation-states in porous ways. For example, they self-identify with South Asia because of South Asian culture's emphasis on the family and express openness and tolerance towards their parents' homeland. On occasions they express tourist-like appreciation of their parents' homelands. Yet in other instances, they reflect upon the ways in which they negotiate foreign and challenging circumstances. At the same time they consider Britain to be their home because they find that women have relatively greater independence and rights here. Some of the women also find it easier in Britain to express their religious rights. For example, they find that in Pakistan, although a Muslim nation, it is not customary to wear a headscarf but rather the traditional dress. Much of the literature that has explored diasporic young people's experience has focused on questions of identity through the lens of their country of residence. However, given the age of global interconnectedness and the decreasing salience of nation as an overarching feature of identity, it becomes significant to explore in greater detail questions of belonging, cosmopolitanism, and nation. Examining the narratives of British born Muslim Asian women, this study conceptualizes identity around ‘belonging’ and ‘cosmopolitanism’. Data are based on in-depth interviews of 25 second-generation British Asian Muslim women meeting regularly at Islamic study circles. Respondents ranged from ages of 19 to 28 years old who were mainly middle class professionals and university students.

The Promise and Perils of Women's Participation in UK Mosques: The Impact of Securitisation Agendas on Identity, Gender and Community

This article examines the confluence of two major recent developments with regard to British Muslim communities. For many British Muslim women Islam has become the cornerstone of their identity. However, alongside this development has been the emergence of a new national security agenda based on counter-terrorism with a particular focus on Islamic fundamentalism. The discourse of state agencies locates Islam and Muslim communities not simply as ‘problem communities’ but as security concerns. The impact of this securitisation on Muslim women's political agency and identity has yet fully to be assessed. The issues surrounding this relatively recent securitisation are explored via the current debates on mosque reform, women's access to mosques and the current discourse which perceives mosques as ‘insecure’ (terrorist) sites in the UK.

Dynamics of Religion and Gender amongst Young British Muslims

Considerable attention has been given to young British Asian Muslim identity in recent years. Whilst much of the literature has addressed the diasporic and transnational nature of British Muslim identity there has been a growing recognition of the need to address the national context in which this identity is formed. However, there is still a comparative lacuna of information about how religion features in the internal dynamics of this grouping, particularly the gender dynamics involved in the articulation of British Muslim men and women's identities.This article presents extracts from discussions with young British Asian Muslim men and women to explore how religion is mobilized as a power resource in the construction of their gender identity. It discusses how the mobilization of religion is often ambivalent, contradictory and intersected with other social differences, particularly class. The article uses Bourdieu's concepts of capital and field to explore the respondents' interviews.

News cultures, security and transnational belonging

Muslim women have often been stereotyped as being trapped in an oppressive and patriarchal system that neither provides freedom of expression nor develops their full potential. This study addresses such 'misconceptions', highlighting the ability of British Muslim women to construct their religious, national and gender identities by engaging in lively debates and questioning what appears to be unjust. Dominant public and media discourses currently often equate Muslims with 'terrorists'. Muslim women challenge this conception by participating in news cultures and negotiating their transnational citizenship. This study shows that the religious and political cultures of families shape women's perceptions and experiences of security and transnational belonging, rather than education.

Islamic Cosmopolitanism: The Sartorial Biographies of Three Muslim Women in London

This article focuses on the dress of three prominent Muslim women who have made a significant mark in British public life: the textile artist Rezia Wahid, the stand-up comedienne Shazia Mirza, and the councilor and advisor on Muslim affairs Humera Khan. It focuses, in particular, on their sartorial biographies, tracing the processes, experiences, and reasoning behind their clothing choices. Whilst the wearing of dress that is visibly identifiable as Islamic is often interpreted as a sign of narrow conservatism or political activism, the biographies of these three women suggest something very different. Their sartorial choices and stylistic innovations are the creative products of cosmopolitan lifestyles and attitudes in which concerns about fashion, religion, politics, and aesthetics are interwoven in interesting ways. The article suggests that a focus on sartorial biography enables a shift away from a whole series of conventional dichotomies: religious/secular, traditional/modern, Eastern/Western, Islam/West, towards a broader understanding of the wide range of experiences and concerns that inform the clothing choices of contemporary British Muslim women. Finally, it is suggested that the proliferation of religiously oriented fashions amongst Muslims in Western metropolitan cities is not necessarily a sign of narrow conservatism. It may also signal the emergence of new forms of Islamic cosmopolitanism.

Health, Exercise, and Well-Being: The Experiences of Midlife Women from Diverse Ethnic Backgrounds

This paper examines midlife women's experiences of exercise and health promotion initiatives and the extent to which these contribute to health and well-being. Many attempts have been made to conceptualise well-being and construct ways of measuring it. An argument of this paper is that these conceptualizations have tended to be overly dominated by psychological and physiological concerns, leading to a neglect of well-being as a socially located phenomenon. Further, understandings of well-being have come to be associated with individualistic notions of agency that emphasize the self as the primary agent of personal well-being. This is evident in recent initiatives that seek to promote participation in exercise regimes as key ingredients of health and well-being. Drawing on qualitative research with Pakistani, British Muslim, white English, British, African Caribbean, black, and West Indian women, the aims of this paper are three-fold. First, to examine current perspectives on well-being and their relationship to individualized notions of responsibility for health. Second, to consider the extent to which health promotion advice empowers midlife women and contributes toward their health and well-being. Third, to question how these initiatives are perceived and experienced by women across ethnic diversity.

Realising Muslim women's rights: The role of Islamic identity among British Muslim women

This article considers the complexities of the British Muslim-Islamic identity and the positions it offers British Muslim women to realise rights from the State in Great Britain. By recognising the interplay of religion, gender and ethnicity in the everyday lives of British Muslim women, it is possible to reveal how religious identity positions have re-constructed rights and provided Muslim women in the UK with a platform from which to attain rights. Specifically, two sets of rights are examined, the right to employment and education, and the right to personal security and family. The article is organised in three parts. The first introduces the methodological and conceptual issues informing the research. The second section analyses the ways in which community and rights intersect with identity. The third area examines in detail the two sets of rights outlined above as presented by those interviewed for the purposes of this research.

Young Muslim women's experiences of Islam and physical education in Greece and Britain: a comparative study

Previous research suggests that Muslim women can experience particular problems when taking physical education (PE) lessons, for example with dress codes, mixed-teaching and exercise during Ramadan; and they can face restrictions in extra-curricular activities for cultural and religious reasons. The area is under-researched and there is little evidence of comparative studies that explore similarities and differences in cross-national experiences, which is the aim of this paper. Two studies conducted in Greece and Britain that explored the views of Muslim women on school experiences of physical education are compared. Both studies focused on diaspora communities, Greek Turkish girls and British Asian women, living in predominantly non-Muslim countries. Growing concerns about global divisions between ‘Muslims and the West’ make this a particularly pertinent study. Qualitative data were collected by interviews with 24 Greek Muslim women, and 20 British Muslim women. Physical education has national curriculum status and a similar rationale in both countries but with different cultures of formality and tradition, which impacted on pupils’ experiences. Data suggested that Greek and British groups held positive views towards physical education but were restricted on their participation in extra-curricular activities. For the British women religious identity and consciousness of Islamic requirements were more evident than for the Greek women. Differences in stages of acculturation, historical and socio-cultural contexts contributed to less problematic encounters with physical education for Greek Muslims who appeared more closely assimilated into the dominant culture.

‘It's Easier that you're a Girl and that you're Asian’: Interactions of ‘Race’ and Gender between Researchers and Participants

This article is concerned with the ways in which ‘race’ and gender interact between interviewers and participants within the research process and the implications of differences/similarities between researcher and participants for feminist research and analysis. The paper discusses issues of power and representation within a research project conducted by the white female author and two Asian female interviewers with 64 British Muslim young men and women. Based on analysis of discussion group data, it is argued that ‘race’ and gender interact between researchers and participants in highly complex and unpredictable ways to produce particular accounts, but comparative analysis of accounts produced with different interviewers can help reveal ‘hidden’ structures of power within the texts.

Modern Traditions? British Muslim Women and Academic Achievement

Modern Traditions? British Muslim Women and Academic Achievement

Modern Traditions? British Muslim Women and Academic Achievement

Participation rates in higher education for British South Asian Muslim women are steadily increasing. The aim of this article, therefore, is to explore motivations and influences for entering higher education and to consider how these may contribute to current discourses surrounding Muslim women in Britain. The possible impact higher education may have on their future relationships and lifestyle choices is also briefly considered. Various notions of 'agency' have been expressed that are characteristic of the ongoing complex assessments made by these women in relation to both perceived familial obligations and their own aspirations. Their articulations suggest that higher education is increasingly viewed as a necessary asset in maintaining and gaining social prestige. This preliminary research indicates that young South Asian Muslim women are continually negotiating and renegotiating their cultural, religious and personal identities and that these processes operate in complex and sometimes contradictory ways.

Negotiating diasporic identities: Young british south asian muslim women

Recent work by cultural theorists has celebrated the “cultures of hybridity” associated with diasporic populations. This paper draws upon research undertaken with young British South Asian Muslim women to explore some of the everyday dilemmas of negotiating diasporic identities. I begin by emphasising the contextual and contingent ways in which diasporic identities are expressed. Diasporic identities are always configured through gender, and I illustrate how the respondents negotiate diasporic identities in relation to both changing familial gender ideals and gender relations and against racialised gender stereotypes. Finally, I consider how the young women are exploring possibilities for reworking gender identities by drawing on alternative diasporic identifications.

Veiled Meanings: Young British Muslim women and the negotiation of differences [1

This article draws upon in-depth discussions conducted with young British Muslim women to explore the ways in which embodied differences are negotiated in the construction and contestation of identity. The author argues that dress is an overdetermined signifier for Muslim women, illustrating the role of clothing, particularly the veil, in the discursive formation of 'Muslim women'. The author explores some of the possibilities for reworking dress to create alternative femininities within different spaces, focusing in particular on the construction of 'hybrid' identities and the articulation of 'new' Muslim identities.

Contradictions of Community: Questions of Identity for Young British Muslim Women

The author addresses contradictions of community through a case study which explores how young British Muslim women construct and contest their identities. Drawing upon the work of Hall, and others, in their theorisation of ‘new ethnicities’ or ‘hybrid identities’, she examines the possibilities for reworking the idea of community as a dynamic process which has a discursive and political effectivity. Through an examination of the constructions of community negotiated and deployed by young British Muslim women she highlights the ways in which different imaginations of community can be both empowering and constraining.

Hegemonic Relations and Gender Resistance: The New Veiling as Accommodating Protest in Cairo

H E P E R SI S T E N CE OF women's subordination throughout history and across many cultures presents a difficult puzzle; although women are clearly assertive actors who struggle for better conditions for themselves and for their families, their efforts often seem to produce limited or ephemeral results. The recent widening of opportunities for some women is unusual, and when placed in historical and cross-cultural perspective, its future seems uncertain.2 In