Constructing and contesting threat: Representations of white British Muslims across British national and Muslim newspapers

Abstract

White British Muslims pose a challenge to racialised representations of British Muslims as non‐white, foreign and Other. By drawing on tools from Critical Discourse Analysis to develop Social Representations Theory on a micro‐analytic level, and making connections with other relevant social psychological theories on intergroup relations, this article examines the constructions of white British Muslims as a threat in six national and two Muslim British newspapers. It looks at how discourses are used to create, perpetuate and challenge the ‘hegemonisation’ of social representations in majority and minority press. The findings show that white British Muslims are portrayed as a threat not just despite of, but because of, their position as part of the ‘white British’ ingroup. Consequently, the threat they pose often leads to their Muslimness being emphasised. This was, at times, contested, however, either through direct challenges, or by making the threat ambivalent by drawing on their whiteness.

Is the press presenting (neoliberal) foreign residency laws in a depoliticised way? The case of investment visas and the reconfiguring of citizenship

“…On the issues of citizenship and migration, previous studies focusing on the press highlight its importance for a better understanding of how certain representations regarding race and ethnicity are there normalised and made (to seem) unproblematic (Tukachinsky, 2015). Others have shown how the press can help create, perpetuate and/or challenge the hegemonic social representations of certain conflicting identities in majority and minority presses (Amer & Howarth, 2017). The press is, then, one place where social conflicts are enacted, and sometimes created (Carvalho, 2008;Castro et al, 2018;Jaspal, Nerlich, & Koteyko, 2013), and therefore constitutes the acting field par excellence for "battles of ideas" (Moscovici & Marková, 2000, p. 275).…”

“…Particularly, it calls for a social and political psychology of mediated communication, capable of exploring how such legal innovations are constructed and presented to the citizenry in the media (Castro, 2012). This is a project to which the theory of social representations can contribute by helping explore the role of the media in creating new shared representations and in furthering their acceptance or rejection by the public (Amer & Howarth, 2017;Castro, 2012;Castro, Seixas, Neca, & Bettencourt, 2018;Jaspal, Nerlich, & Koteyko, 2013).…”

Between Recognition and Mis/Nonrecognition: Strategies of Negotiating and Performing Identities Among White Muslims in the United Kingdom

“…Muslims make up 8% of Muslims, 2 36% of whom identified specifically as "white British" (Office for National Statistics, 2011). Many of these are converts to the religion, although some are also inevitably "born into" the religion, being descendants of white British people who had converted to Islam (Amer & Howarth, 2018). 3 White Muslims have been described as a "minority within a minority" (Brice, 2011), a group with a unique set of experiences and challenges, despite sharing some of these experiences with other Muslims.…”

“…combination (Amer & Howarth, 2018;Meer, 2013;Moosavi, 2015). Thus, the nuances of straddling both a dominant ingroup and a minority outgroup (as well as acknowledging the interconnections with gender) provide an interesting frame through which to examine multiple and complex identities in experiences of recognition and belonging.…”

“…Muslims are often viewed by many white majority groups-that is as foreign, other, and incompatible with what it means to be white and British (Amer & Howarth, 2018;Moosavi, 2015). Moreover, within the context of "othering" Islam as non-British, the act of becoming Muslim brings to the fore socially and politically embedded notions of whiteness and nationalism as being rooted in Christianity (Amer & Howarth, 2016;Phillips, 2006).…”