Researching within and against Islamophobia: a collaboration project with Muslim communities

Being a Young British Muslim in the Age of the ‘War on Terror’: A Critical Reflection on Interviewing a Young Muslim in Britain

“…The identity of the interviewer and the interviewee during the interview process is underpinned by not only religious identity, but also ethnic, gender, race, nationality, and social class (Phoenix, 1994in Rian, Aaron, Forman, 2011. Moreover, in researching identity, the positionality of the researcher has multi-layered power dynamics, shifting boundaries and identities, self-censorship, multiple positioning, and fractured subjectivities (Luff, 1999;Giampapa, 2011;Ryan, Kofman and Aaron, 2011;Anna Mansson McGinty, 2013).…”

The British Asian Muslim male sport participation puzzle: an exploration of implications for sport development policy and practice

“…In this sense, this paper examines the context of how sport is part of the ongoing process of religious cultural identity formation, renegotiation and reconstruction (Hall, 1996;Modood, 2005) for young British Asian Muslim males. This project highlights diversity and heterogeneity within the Muslim community and "recognises also that Muslim is not always a religious category but may have a primarily political, cultural and national meaning" (McGinty, Sziarto and Seymour-Journ, 2013;2). We have a core belief that through on the ground experience of conversation, negotiation and debate we can further blur the crude concrete distinctions between Muslim and non-Muslim.…”

“…We support the central view that "one of the core problems of contemporary debates about Islam concerns the highly restrictive ways in which Islam is constructed without referring, often tellingly, to the view of Muslims themselves" (Gale and Hopkins, 2009; 2). Sport and its role in the everyday lives of young Muslim men is an important and underexplored and potentially illuminating aspect of their multiple, fluid social identities that can counter dominant discourses and representations of 'Islamic youth '. Or, as McGinty, Sziarto and Seymour-Journ (2013) have argued, it is through mobilising hybrid identities we can understand, argue for and outline new positions for Muslims in the West and present the realities of communities.…”

“…It is particularly important in the context of representing and understanding more complex and plural experiences of religious social identities and sport participation (Gale and Hopkins, 2009;Kong, 2009). It is the heterogenous, fluid nature of British Asian Muslim identities (Abbas, 2005;Modood, 2005;Modood, 2009) that are particularly suited to using in-depth interviews and collaborative fieldwork (McGinty, Sziarto and Seymour-Journ, 2013). Rationale for our approach is outlined by Walseth (2006) who believes that in-depth one-to-one interviews provide participants with the space to go into detail on rich themes and issues that they regard as important in their lives.…”

“… to explore and identify the factors that shape, influence or limit sport participation amongst young British Asian Muslim males in England;  to examine the meanings, beliefs and perspectives of British Asian Muslim male participants in relation to sport to establish specific factors that determine sport participation in England;  to understand and consider the interplay between religion, faith and sport for British Asian Muslim males in the context of sport participation;  to consider the implications for sport development policy and practice in increasing opportunities for sport participation for British Asian Muslim male communities in England. The paper is also part of a broader project to engage with, and challenge, dominant popular representations of Muslim identities (Gale and Hopkins, 2009) and popular 'us and them' orientalist discourses (McGinty, Sziarto and Seymour-Journ, 2013). As part of this endeavour we aim to also move beyond the binary opposition of young British Asian Muslims as individuals in 'constant identity crisis' or 'new folk devils' (Shain, 2011) and the idealized 'future of Islam' (Ahmad and Seddon, 2012).…”