Second-generation Muslim Research Articles

The Possibilities and Limits of Participatory Theatre: Exploring Belonging and Resistance with Second-Generation Black and Muslim Dutch Youth in the Netherlands

Grounded in a collaborative theatre project with Black and Muslim second-generation Dutch youth in the Netherlands, this paper critically examines the use of participatory theatre as a method of knowledge production. Drawing on vignettes from the theatre project, I investigate the possibilities and limits of theatre as an embodied research method for practicing resistance to, and fostering public dialogue about, Islamophobia and racism. I argue that theatre can be a citizenship practice by prefiguring alternate futures, rehearsing resistance to oppression, and facilitating cross-racial and public dialogue.

Private Revolutions of Second-generation Muslim American Women

While certain research topics regarding second-generation Muslim American women are still relevant, (e.g., Islamophobia and the hijab), recent research unearths the nuances within these topics while also moving away from them for a more holistic, accurate picture of the population. The gendered and racialized aspects of Islamophobia are examined, but so, too, are the responses and the agency of the women who are subjected to these prejudices. The reactions of Muslim women are critical to recognize as they highlight their agency and their presence as intentional actors in their own lives. Navigating both Muslim and non-Muslim spheres, they activate different sources of cultural knowledge for both while also creating their own dynamic, experiential sources. These new sources include the marrying of "American" technologies to traditional Islamic reasoning to create a third body of knowledge that is uniquely second-generation, Muslim, and American. The cumulative result of a generation of women having private identity revolutions is a slow but sure sociocultural change for Islam in America.

Political opportunity structures and the activism of first- and second-generation Muslims in two Italian cities

ABSTRACTThe present contribution describes Muslims’ opportunities for activism and political participation, as shaped institutionally and discursively, in Milan and Turin. It analyses the interplay between the national level and the local level, and assesses the implications that contrasting local arrangements have for Muslims’ activism, claims-making and, to a certain extent, even self-identifications – especially with reference to young, second-generation Muslims. In Milan Muslims are confronted with a very closed system of political opportunities, while in Turin there appears to be a much more open system, which aims at co-opting second-generation organisations in particular. The consequence is that while in Milan Muslims – especially second-generation ones – are resigned to being merely the recipients of integration policies, in Turin they can conceive themselves more as partners of the city’s institutions, by resorting to a strategy of ‘active citizenship’.

Resisting Islamophobia

Since 9/11, second-generation Muslims have experienced an increase in religious discrimination that has presented several challenges to their American integration. Scholars have noted that Muslims are often marginalized and “othered” because of their religious beliefs, attire choices and non-Western ethnic origins. In New York, Arabs, South Asians and Africans are the predominant ethnic groups practicing Islam. Although Muslim communities are ethnically and racially diverse, they are categorized in ways that have transformed their religious identity into a racialized group. This new form of racial amalgamation is not constructed on underlying skin color similarities but on their religious adherence to Islam. The War on Terror has complicated the image of Muslims by circulating Islamophobia, or the fear of Muslims and Islam, onto American society. Political rhetoric targeting Muslim communities has also incited new ways of misinterpreting Qur’anic text to further marginalize them. Second-generation Muslim Americans are responding to Islamophobia by reframing the negative depictions about their identities through community-based activism. This paper takes an intersectionality approach to understanding how Muslims across the New York metro area are managing their religious identities as they seek to develop a sense of belonging in American society. This ethnographic case study addresses how second-generation Muslims are resisting Islamophobia through community building, civic engagement, and college student associations. Countering Islamophobia has become part of the everyday life experience for Muslims in New York and is currently their main trajectory for integration into American society.

Resisting Islamophobia: Muslims Seeking American Integration Through Spiritual Growth, Community Organizing and Political Activism

Since 9/11, second-generation Muslims have experienced an increase in religious discrimination that has presented several challenges to their American integration. Scholars have noted that Muslims are often marginalized and “othered” because of their religious beliefs, attire choices and non-Western ethnic origins. In New York, Arabs, South Asians and Africans are the predominant ethnic groups practicing Islam. Although Muslim communities are ethnically and racially diverse, they are categorized in ways that have transformed their religious identity into a racialized group. This new form of racial amalgamation is not constructed on underlying skin color similarities but on their religious adherence to Islam. The War on Terror has complicated the image of Muslims by circulating Islamophobia, or the fear of Muslims and Islam, onto American society. Political rhetoric targeting Muslim communities has also incited new ways of misinterpreting Qur’anic text to further marginalize them. Second-generation Muslim Americans are responding to Islamophobia by reframing the negative depictions about their identities through community-based activism. This paper takes an intersectionality approach to understanding how Muslims across the New York metro area are managing their religious identities as they seek to develop a sense of belonging in American society. This ethnographic case study addresses how second-generation Muslims are resisting Islamophobia through community building, civic engagement, and college student associations. Countering Islamophobia has become part of the everyday life experience for Muslims in New York and is currently their main trajectory for integration into American society.

Becoming American by becoming Muslim: strategic assimilation among second-generation Muslim American parents

ABSTRACTStrategic assimilation describes how individuals use boundary work to construct identities which allow them to selectively maintain ties to a minority community while assimilating into the mainstream. However, scholarship that accounts for the role that minority religious identity plays in these processes is warranted. The current study fills a theoretical and empirical niche by exploring boundary work among not only racial, but religious minorities in their processes of identity construction and assimilation. Based on two years of ethnographic fieldwork as well as 72 in-depth interviews with Muslim Americans in Metro-Detroit, I demonstrate how upper-middle-class suburban second-generation parents actively deconstructed class, racial, and ethnic boundaries to construct boundaries around religious identity and generational identity. In so doing, they consciously crafted a de-ethnicized interpretation of Islam and hence a Muslim American identity that they saw as integral in promoting upward assimilation for themselves and their third-generation children.

Second-generation Western Muslims: A qualitative analysis of multiple social identities.

The relationships between social identities are important when discussing the national and religious identities of Muslims in Western contexts. This study explored the identity narratives of second-generation Muslim young adults to consider the relevance of bicultural identity and acculturation theories commonly employed in research with this group. The sample comprised 20 Muslim young adults of diverse ethnicities and backgrounds from Montreal, Berlin, and Copenhagen who participated in semi-structured interviews that explored how they negotiate their social identities in light of their unique life course trajectories. This article focuses on two major themes underlying second-generation identity development: the importance of personal experience in the development of social identities; and the enmeshment of multiple social identities. We then discuss the results of our findings in light of the complex nature of social identity, group membership, and political categorization.

Gender identity and integration: second-generation Somali immigrants navigating gender in Canada

ABSTRACTMany right-leaning politicians claim that normative Islamic perspectives on gender are at odds with the Western values and act as barriers to immigrant integration. Our interviews with 256 second-generation Somali-Canadians, however, suggest that gender-egalitarian identities are achieved – they are constructed and deployed by our participants to practice integration and express belonging in Canada. In this study, we move beyond analysis of attaining gender-egalitarian roles as a result of immigration and propose an understanding of gender as a form of Bourdieusian cultural capital that, depending on social values, functions as symbolic capital rendering individuals and groups as advantaged or disadvantaged. We, therefore, analyse modalities of “doing” gender as potential strategies of accumulating capital in furthering successful integration. Our study contributes to the emergent literature in migration studies that examines gender in relation to ethnic and national identities, and the extent to which it may impact integration experiences of second-generation Muslim immigrants.

Complexity Beyond Intersections: Race, Class, and Neighborhood Disadvantage among African American Muslims

This study uses the case of African American Muslims to examine the intersection of religious inequality with other forms of disadvantage. It draws on more than six years of ethnographic and historical research in an African American Muslim community in a poor neighborhood in Los Angeles, comparing the experiences of community members with existing research on first- and second-generation Muslim immigrants. It addresses the three most prominent axes of difference between African American and immigrant Muslims—race/ethnicity, class, and neighborhood disadvantage—to explicate the ways in which religion may compound existing inequalities, or in some cases create new forms of difference. It also shows how identifying as native-born Americans allows African American Muslims to claim religion as a cultural advantage in certain situations. Religion is complex not only when different forms of inequality intersect but when these intersections create a different way of understanding what religion means for people of faith.

“Every soul shall taste death.” Attitudes and beliefs of Moroccan muslim women living in Antwerp (Belgium) toward dying, death, and the afterlife

ABSTRACTThis study aims to elicit the beliefs and attitudes of middle-aged and elderly Moroccan Muslim women toward dying, death, and the afterlife; to identify whether differences are observable between middle-aged and elderly participants and to document how the actual attitudes of our participants relate to normative Islamic literature. Interviews were conducted with middle-aged and elderly Moroccan women living in Belgium (n = 30) and with experts in the field (n = 15). This study reveals that the belief in an omnipotent and omniscient God and in an afterlife strongly marks the attitudes of first- and second-generation Muslims in Belgium toward life and death.

“God is the giver and taker of life”: Muslim beliefs and attitudes regarding assisted suicide and euthanasia

ABSTRACTIn the context of the Belgian debates on end-of-life care, the views of Muslims remain understudied. The aim of this article is twofold. First, we seek to document the relation between contemporary normative Muslim ideas on assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia on the one hand and real-world views and attitudes of Muslims living in Belgium on the other hand. Second, we aim to identify whether a shift is observable in the views and attitudes regarding active termination of life between first- and second-generation Muslims. We have observed that when dealing with these bioethical issues, both first- and second-generation Muslims adopt a theological line of reasoning similar to the one that can be found in normative Islamic views. We have found an absolute rejection of every act that deliberately terminates life, based upon the unconditional belief in an afterlife and in God's sovereign power over life and death.

Transnationalism among Second-Generation Muslim Americans: Being and Belonging in Their Transnational Social Field

An increase in transnationalism, the ability of individuals and families to travel and maintain relationships across national borders, has led to questions about its impact on identity especially for the children of migrants. When combined with concerns about global and national security such as those that are associated with Muslims and Islam, then questions about the strength national identity are particularly pertinent. This analysis uses the theories of transnational social fields and intersectionality to examine the transnational experiences of second-generation Muslim Americans. It relies on qualitative interview data. The data show the intersection of their national, religious, and gender identities. It demonstrates that they experience transnational being in their parents’ country of origin and belonging in the United States. Nationality, religion, and gender influence what they experience in each location. The analysis demonstrates the stability and centrality of American national identity in what second-generation Muslims experience in both locations. Moreover, their belonging in the United States rests squarely on their perceptions of themselves as Americans and their construction of their Muslim identity as an American religious identity.

하니프 쿠레이시의 스크린플레이 My Son the Fanatic에 나타난 이슬람 근본주의의 재현과 다문화주의의 딜레마

The rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the 1990s has puzzled and challenged Hanif Kureishi(1954-) to examine the conditions heightening this sinister, destructive phenomenon in the West. The alien, threatening ideology has indeed complicated Kureishi’s view of British multiculturalism and Western liberalism buttressing it. Focusing on generational and cultural conflicts between a liberal father and a fundamentalist son, My Son the Fanatic(1997) moves away from the established representation of ‘second-generation Muslim children vs. their father’s conservative values.’ The screenplay was particularly well received in the post-9/11 and 7/7 context by the audience and the critics who argued that the play was prescient and very timely in tackling multicultural dilemmas plaguing Western democracies. However, Kureishi’s representation of Islamic fundamentalists in the screenplay is disputable in the sense that it reinforces Western prejudices against the second-generation muslim youth through the process of forming and presenting a ‘crisis of liberalism’ narrative. The binary opposition of liberalism and fundamentalism maintains throughout the work, failing to produce any constructive dialogue and only to be replaced by an human relationship between two liberal, cultural hybrids. Focusing on the process in which Kureishi dramatizes the conflict between fundamentalism and liberalism, this paper argues that the dilemma of multiculturalism in My Son the Fanatic is constructed only through the sacrifice of the objective, fully-fledged representation of muslims.

Close Encounters: Minority and Majority Perceptions of Discrimination and Intergroup Relations in Antwerp, Belgium

Increasing numbers of second-generation Muslims are highly qualified and locally embedded in today's European cities. This does not protect them, however, from experiencing discrimination in intergroup encounters in school, at work, or in the street. Taking an approach from local intergroup relations between ethnic minorities and the majority society, we draw on the TIES (The Integration of the European Second Generation) surveys to compare Turkish and Moroccan minorities and majority Belgians in Antwerp, Belgium. Our research aims (1) to establish minority and majority perspectives on (reverse) personal discrimination (2) in different life domains, and (3) to differentiate internally between gender, socioeconomic attainments, and local climates. Structural equation models show minority and majority group perspectives on discrimination as gendered and situated inter-group encounters in socioeconomic and civic domains of life.

RACE KNOWLEDGE

AbstractThis analysis addresses race knowledge or the connection between race identity and the ability to designate what is socially legitimate. It problematizes race inequality in light of neoliberal, post-Civil Rights racial reforms. Using qualitative data from interviews with second-generation Muslim Americans, the analysis maps their understanding of the racialized social legitimacy of Brown, Black, and White identities. Findings address how racial hierarchy is organized by racial neoliberalism and the persistence of White supremacy. They show that White racial dominance continues in spite of claims of post-racialism. Moreover, second-generation Muslim Americans position their Brown and Black racial identity as subordinate to White racial identity, but Brown and Black races are different rather than hierarchically positioned in reference to one another. The respondents bring neoliberal globalism as well as U.S. racial dynamics to bear on their understandings of racial hierarchy and racialized social legitimacy.

Association of acculturative stress, Islamic practices, and internalizing symptoms among Arab American adolescents.

Although the numbers of Arab American immigrant youth in schools is increasing, there is little understanding of their mental health and the sociocultural factors that might influence it. This study examined the relationship between 2 sociocultural factors (i.e., acculturative stress and religious practices) and internalizing symptoms in first- and second-generation Muslim Arab American adolescents. Adolescents (n = 88) ages 11 to 18 completed measures related to acculturative stress, religious practices, internalizing symptoms, and general demographic information. Results of multiple regression analyses found that acculturative stress significantly predicted internalizing symptoms. Gender was found to moderate this association. No differences in the reported acculturative stress and internalizing symptoms were found between youth of different generational status (i.e., first- vs. second-generation). Finally, adolescents' organizational religious practices, but not their private religious practices, were found to be associated with lower acculturative stress. Implications are discussed related to how school psychologists can provide culturally responsive services to this population. (PsycINFO Database Record

Dead End: The Failure of Multicultural Britain in Sunjeev Sahota’s Ours Are the Streets (2011)

Based on Ours Are the Streets (Sunjeev Sahota, 2011), this article examines how the UK’s homeless, jobless, disenfranchised second-generation Muslims struggle to align their ethnic/cultural identities with their British identity. This is one of the first British novels that address the issue of integration in relation to radicalization. The Umma – the worldwide community of Muslims – provides some of these hyphenated Britons with a space for dissent through which they explore new modes of self-identification and commitment, through self-imposed exile and idealized trajectories in Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria, the inverted mirror image of their parents’ westward journey.

Religione e politica nell’islam territoriale

How do second-generation Muslims see the relationship between religion and politics at a local level? Are their needs similar to, or different from, those of their parents? And how do local authorities fit into the picture?For some time now, the debate about managing Islam has been carried out at a local level, forming part of the integration policies of the cities which put it into practice.This paper examines the religion-politics relationship by analysing how parents (first generations) and children (second generations) imagine and portray this relationship: requests, way of interaction, representatives’ characteristics can be considered variables taking into account in discussing how immigrants and their second generations express their religious belonging in Italy. Differences emerge, showing how Muslim communities are changing, even though stereotypes still matter. Changes are representing new challenges at local level, where institutions have to manage both cultural and religious differences daily. The paper also studies how local institutions have interacted over time with various Islamic voices, including first- and second-generation, male and female, associations.

Intergenerational religious transmission mechanisms among second-generation migrants: The case of Jewish immigrants in the United States

Do religious transmission mechanisms work differently for immigrant groups that experience different modes of acculturation in the host society? Recent studies about religious transmission among Muslim migrants in Europe found that religious practices at home during childhood are the strongest predictors of the preservation of religious practices among young people, whereas external socialization platforms (friends, schooling) have less of an impact. These studies also found that Muslims encounter barriers to integration into Western societies. Such hostility might push them to adopt a separatist mode of acculturation that includes preserving their religious identity. To determine whether these findings can be generalized to other groups that have an integrative mode of acculturation, we investigate intergenerational religious transmission mechanisms and attitudes toward endogamy and religious transmission to one's children among second-generation Jewish migrants in America. Utilizing a sample of 1480 second-generation Jewish migrants from Israel and the Former Soviet Union (FSU) from the large scale Taglit-Birthright database, we found that practices at home have the strongest explanatory power for preserving religious practices among young people currently. In contrast, Jewish socialization activities have little or no impact on the continuity of religious observances. Interestingly, despite reported differences in the literature between Jewish immigrants from Israel and the FSU, place of origin was not a statistically significant factor in explaining intergenerational religious transmission mechanisms. These findings largely accord with the results reported in the studies about second-generation Muslim migrants in European countries, suggesting that religious transmission mechanisms work similarly despite different modes of acculturation.

Explaining the Muslim employment gap in Western Europe: Individual-level effects and ethno-religious penalties

It is well-documented that Muslims experience economic disadvantages in Western European labor markets. However, few studies comprehensively test individual-level explanations for the Muslim employment gap. Using data from the European Social Survey, this research note briefly examines the role of individual-level differences between Muslims and non-Muslims in mediating employment differences. Results reveal that human capital, migration background, religiosity, cultural values, and perceptions of discrimination jointly account for about 40% of the employment variance between Muslims and non-Muslims. Model specifications for first- and second-generation Muslim immigrants reveal a similar pattern, with migration background and perceived discrimination being of key relevance in mediating employment difference. While individual-level effects are indeed relevant, unexplained variance suggests that symbolic boundaries against Islam may still translate into tangible ethno-religious penalties.