Muslims and the media in the blogosphere

In the past two decades a virtual Ummah has evolved in cyberspace. While some of these websites are targeted specifically at Muslims, others attempt to provide outreach on Islam or counter Islamophobic bias. As noted by Jon Anderson, in his pioneering work on Islam in cyberspace, Muslims were among the first engineering students to create websites at the dawn of the Internet, before mainstream Islamic organizations posted official websites. There is a wealth of material by Muslims in English and Western languages, some of it archived for research. This article explores the methodological problems posed in studying the range of Islam-content blogs, from private individuals to religious scholars, as well as Muslim websites that feature comments from readers. The focus of the paper is an analysis of blogs about Islam or by Muslims that either act as watchdogs on the media or try to provide alternative views to the mainstream media of competing Muslim groups. Researching these blogs as a form of e-ethnography calls for a rethinking and refining of anthropological methodology as e-ethnography.     

Classifying Muslims: Contextualizing Religion and Race in the United Kingdom and Germany

Since the late 20th century, public discourse in Muslim-minority countries has centered around the question of how to classify Muslims. In this paper, we compare the state, academic, and self-classification of Muslims in two countries: the United Kingdom and Germany. We propose that the historical experience of anti-Semitism makes religion a more salient master category to understand Muslims in Germany, while the history of both anti-Semitism and anti-Black racism largely resulting from colonial domination means that religion together with race are master categories used to understand Muslims in the United Kingdom. Through this multilayered ethnographic and historical analysis, we challenge taken-for-granted assumptions in both the political and academic milieu about what it means to be Muslim, emphasizing the importance of the interplay between sociopolitical categories and self-identifications.     

American Muslims stand up and speak out: trajectories of humor in Muslim American stand-up comedy

Muslim American stand-up comedy is a unique response to post-9/11 negative social discrimination where socially critical comedians debate the stereotypes and realities of Muslim American life. Thus they continue an American minority tradition of engaging with American social life through public humor. The analysis draws from functionalist theories of the sociology of humor in order to discern the intended social messages of jokes that are meant to entertain and also educate. It shows how Muslim American comedy intends to influence opinions held not only about Muslims but also amongst Muslims. The paper suggests how competing forces related to being Muslim and American undercut the critical public humor of comedians who use these performances to argue what American Muslims should be saying and doing in order to advance their cause for social justice.     

Adaptation of a Muslim Spiritual Attachment Scale (God attachment) for Turkish Muslims: a validity and reliability study

ABSTRACT

Despite the importance of a believer’s attachment relationship with God for mental health, there are few measures relevant to Muslims, and little work on cross-cultural validation of such measures. The objective of the present study was to examine the validity and reliability of the Muslim Spiritual Attachment Scale (M-SAS) in Turkish Muslim samples. In analyzing the data, three different samples of college students (N?=?525, N?=?341, and N?=?47 respectively) were used. The validity and reliability of M-SAS were examined through exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, the internal consistency coefficient and the split-half reliability coefficient. Results supported a three-factor model of M-SAS with good reliability for the factors, and convergence with an alternative God Attachment measure. As a result, it may be concluded that M-SAS can be used as a valid and reliable measurement instrument in Turkish Muslim samples. The results are discussed in the light of the relevant literature.     

Challenging the opposition of LGBT identities and Muslim cultures: initial research on the experiences of LGBT Muslims in Canada

ABSTRACT

Many have described the cultural and political opposition between LGBT rights and identities and Muslim cultures. Rahman (2014) has argued that one important way to challenge this perceived enmity is to produce further knowledge about the experiences and identities of LGBT Muslims because they exist at the intersections of this political opposition and disrupt the assumptions underlying it. Drawing on Rahman’s framework of Muslim LGBT as “LGBT Intersectional Identities”, we provide initial evidence from on-going research into the experiences of LGBT Muslims in Canada, based on six in-depth qualitative interviews. Focusing on the tensions between living an LGBT life and being Muslim, we demonstrate that there are strategies for reconciling the two that undermine assumptions about the mutual exclusivity of Muslim cultures and homosexualities. These strategies both confirm the extant evidence of identity processes for LGBT Muslims and provide some new evidence of the awareness of negotiating Islamophobia, racialization and Muslim homophobia as part of the development of an LGBT Muslim identity, and the need to understand Muslim identity in a broader frame than simply religious. In this sense, the experiences of LGBT Muslims present an LGBT intersectional challenge, both to western assumptions about the coherence of LGBT identity and the coming out process, and to assumptions in Muslim culture that tend to position individuals who identify as LGBT outside of their traditions.     

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

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.     

Muslim Canadians: Immigration policy and community development in the 1991 census

Canada's Muslim population is rapidly increasing. Initial immigration was hindered by the racist White Canada policy, discarded in 1962. Thereafter, Muslims from South Asia and the Middle East entered Canada in large numbers as professionals and trained workers, as well as substantial numbers of refugees. While the community is well‐integrated economically, in terms of job classification and educational involvement, Muslims face prejudice and discrimination because of their race and religion. The most important challenge is passing on religious and cultural traditions to offspring, not only since their socialization occurs in a secular environment but also because the higher levels of economic and educational success within the Muslim community tend to break down religious and cultural barriers to mixed marriages. While characteristics of Muslim social identity, such as esteem for education and caring for older relatives, are positive factors encouraging group adhesion, negative forces, such as racism, also contribute to group maintenance.     

Devoutness to Islam and the Attitudinal Acceptance of Political Violence Among Young Muslims in Germany

This article investigates the links between religious beliefs and capitalist mentalities—namely devoutness to Islam and hierarchic self‐interest (HSI)—and violence‐accepting attitudes among the young Muslim migrant population in Germany. Following a situational perspective, these links are analyzed under different individual conditions structured by (socioeconomic) precariousness and education. Based on framing approaches and concepts from socialization theory, we derive the following hypothesis: The links between religious beliefs and capitalist mentalities and the attitudinal acceptance of violence are stronger among individuals with low levels of education and a precarious economic status (compared to high education/nonprecarious status). The strongest link is expected for a negative status inconsistency (high education/precarious economic status). Structural equation models for data from a random probability sample of 350 Muslims (aged 14–32 years) in Germany indicate that attitudinal acceptance of violence among young Muslims is not predicted by devoutness to Islam but by economic precariousness and by acceptance of capitalist values of the HSI belief system.     

Reaching out in a climate of negativity: perceptions and persistence among Muslim sources engaging with news media

The conceptions sources have of journalists influence whether and in what ways those sources engage with the news media. In this paper, I consider the contribution of Muslim sources to news in a context of perceived negativity. Scholarship on the content of British news stories about Muslims has found a consistently negative tone; my study examines the impressions of sources as co-producers of that content. My data come from qualitative fieldwork conducted in Glasgow, Scotland, studying relationships between journalists and Muslim sources through a combination of methods, with an emphasis on interviews. In these interviews, sources articulated an overwhelmingly negative conception of journalists and news organisations. I consider different constructions of negativity and what they suggest about how participants perceive the media, and I problematise the minority instances of positive conceptions. Finally, I evaluate why sources who identify as Muslim would bother participating in media production, given this perception of negativity. This discussion is informed by Couldry’s concept of ‘media meta-capital’ (Couldry 2003), which a macro-level power that imposes other fields of public life, and Schlesinger’s attentiveness to source strategies (Schlesinger 1990), a form of agency at the micro-level. This case study suggests that, whatever sources think of media coverage, their choice to contribute to its production is conditioned by strategic considerations, revealing development in the media’s relations with Muslims in Britain.     

Pacifying Muslims in Germany’s ‘City of Peace’: interreligious dialogue as a tool of governance in Osnabrück

ABSTRACT

Addressing Muslims as a target group in municipal politics is a relatively new development in German cities. Interreligious dialogue, often initiated by established Christian actors, provides a format for doing so. In our local West German case study, the politics of dialogue link up with a historical narrative of Osnabrück as ‘City of Peace’, creating a semantic framework which is hard to resist, yet not undisputed. As a governance tool, interreligious dialogue has the potential to pacify and to structure social relations. It tends to prefer and support certain subject positions, while neglecting others. In this contribution we focus both on actors who are involved in local interreligious dialogue as well as those who – for diverse reasons – do not participate, and who question or oppose it. Thus, we analyse the effects of interreligious dialogue on local subjectivation processes, including alternative reactions that might challenge the dominant paradigm.     

Lobbying for Civil and Religious Rights of Immigrants and Muslims: Desecuritization Strategies of Islamic Umbrella Organizations in Germany

This article discusses how Islamic umbrella organizations advocate for civil rights of immigrants and Muslims in Germany. By focusing on the changing migration and security regimes at the turn of the twenty-first century, it analyzes the political emphasis on perceived “threats” in light of theoretical debates about the “securitization of migration”, and in particular, the role of Islamic organizations as lobbyists which publicly protest against associations being made between the two policy fields. Their public protest is against provisions of the new Nationality Act (2000) and the Immigration Act (2005) that require immigrants to prove German language skills, to be able to support themselves, and to pass naturalization tests as well as against the lack of dual citizenship and local voting rights. In addressing these issues, Islamic umbrella organizations expand their traditional scope of advocacy work to achieve religious rights for Muslim individuals and organizations, such as the official recognition of Islamic umbrella organizations and the introduction of Islamic religious education in public schools.