Transgressing community: the case of Muslims in a twenty-first-century British city

The Anthropology of Islam in Europe: A Double Epistemological Impasse

“…A first line of studies has sought to historically trace and critically unpack the discourses and practices of deradicalization (Kundnani 2014, Fadil, de Koning & Ragazzi 2019. In doing so, these studies have attended to the general transformation of Muslims into suspicious subjects (Schiffauer 2008, Birt 2008, as well as its effects upon their everyday lives (Hussain 2013, Qureishi & Zeitlyn 2012. A few recent anthropological studies have, furthermore, sought to complicate the dominant representations of abject figures such as neo-orthodox Muslims or foreign fighters by analyzing their posture as a form of social critique (Suhr 2015, Alloul 2019), or by offering a complex take on the participation of European Muslims in the Caliphate (Navest, de Koning & Moors 2016).…”

Mapping Black mixed-race Birmingham: Place, locality and identity

“…In the twenty-first century, Birmingham has retained its unique place as a battleground for Britain's race politics and policies. The sizeable Muslim population in Sparkbrook, for example, has in recent times been vulnerable to the surveillance apparatus of the nation's so-called 'war-on-terror' (Hussain, 2014). Given that Birmingham holds such a significant place in Britain's historical narrative around race and racism, and has the secondlargest mixed population in the country, it seems ironic that it has been neglected as a research location.…”

“…These tensions that exist 'between attraction and repulsion implicit in the various representations of city life' are an interesting framework for thinking through contemporary and historical ideas about mixed-race and mixing in Britain over time (Keith, 2005, p. 28). Whilst on the one hand cities are co-opted to represent the potential of the urban to create the conditions for a melting pot society whereby the significance of racial differences fades away, representations of the metropolis (and Birmingham in particular) as a site for racialized conflict, tension and transgression also continue unabated (Hussain, 2014;Wilson, 2015). Mixed-race populations, who overwhelmingly reside in cities, are implicated in all of these competing representations of the urban.…”

British Muslims perceptions of social cohesion: from multiculturalism to community cohesion and the ‘war on terror’

“…Multiculturalism was also criticised for encouraging British Muslims to 'separate themselves and live by their own values, resulting in extremism and, ultimately, the fostering of a mortal home-grown terrorist threat' ( [32], p. 26). Within this context, the construction of the British Muslim community as suspect [27,38] led to the implementation of polices in which British Muslims were stereotyped as problematic [29], leading to the term BAsian' ceasing to have much content as a political category' ( [42], p. 187). The problematisation and the growing securitisation of British Muslims, as evident through the reduction of rights and freedom of British Muslims when compared to other communities [37] meant that emphasis was taken off real issues, such as racism and the growth of the far right [1].…”

“…Thus, as Sivanandan [52] argues, 'the immigrant is no longer just a classical outsider but also the terrorist within'. According to Hussain [27], such a construction was purposeful because British Muslims could only be questioned about loyalty and belonging if they were constructed as a 'homogenous group'. The dual policies therefore changed the discourses associated with British Muslims.…”