Conversion Strategies and the Power to Define: British and American Muslim Performance in Bourdieu's Field of Art

Abstract

When a number of Muslims in non-Muslim majority countries in North America and Western Europe gained attention as upcoming performers in the genres of hip-hop, stand-up comedy and performing poetry in the last decades, this was perceived as a remarkable phenomenon by public media and social scientists. Firstly, a lot of these performers bring Islam to the fore in their artistic expressions in the public domain, whereas, secondly, the relation between art and Islam is perceived as troublesome at various social levels. While gaining visibility after the multiple terrorist attacks, the phenomenon of entertaining Muslims is often understood as an expression of post-Islamism, the attitude of tolerance in Islamism that synthesizes contrasting opinions. Expressions of Muslims are explained as "purposeful art" and the performing arts as a repertoire to diffuse (positive) Islamic values. To comprehend the complex manifestations of religion in modern day societies as reflected by these trends, existing social perspectives are now no longer considered satisfactory. The forthcoming paper examines if the perspectives of symbolic interactionist, process and relational sociology are indeed insufficient to discuss and explain several significant understandings of Muslims, their practices and discourse regarding (popular) art. Do all of these artists equally pursue art with a social purpose? Are Islamic authoritative voices significant to everyone? Or do the artists follow wayward conversion strategies in order to achieve their objectives and become established?

Islam, culture and authoritative voices in the UK and the US

“…Similar to discussions in Christianity in Western Europe about whether art can serve as praise of God and motivate ethical action or, on the contrary, stirs immodest behaviour (Brown 2000, p. 55), there is an ongoing discourse among many Muslims on the (im)permissibility of (popular) art in Islam even in Western democracies (see also Aidi 2014, pp. 44-70;Mandaville 2009;Abdul-Khabeer 2007;Van Tilborgh 2016b). Disputes about dance are found in hadiths during the lives of the Prophet Muhammad and his Companions (Abd-Allah 2004), those about musical instruments among theologians from the time after the Prophet (Shiloah 1995, pp.…”

“…Being connected to indigenous leaders with significant cultural and symbolic capital in the transnational network of 'Traditional Islam' has made the artists feel part of an important development within Islam. It stimulated Muslim platforms, providing opportunities for Muslim artists to perform on their own non-Hollywood kind of terms, increasing their power to define (Van Tilborgh 2016b. Nevertheless, although Islamic moral guidelines are, for many artists, an important aspect and the conditional view their foundation, it is not their final stage.…”