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How does it feel to walk down the street when you are Muslim? This article takes this main question into consideration based on young Muslims’ narratives of being looked upon in different public arenas. The analysis is based on fieldwork with young Muslims in religious communities in Copenhagen, and introduces the concept of panoptical gazes in regard to an understanding of how theyoung Muslims are looked upon and how they utilize different strategies of positioning in regard to the gazes they are met with. The concept of panoptical gazes, are at the end of the article juxtaposed with the concept of passing. The analysis of the young Muslim men and women’s narrativespoints towards the particular embodied, intersectional and local possibilities for becoming and being visible as a legitimate Muslim subject in a society fraught with stereotypical and often negative images and discourses on Islam and Muslims.

This article is based on fieldwork with young Muslims in Copenhagen and focuses on how they navigate the visibility and embodiment of Muslim otherness in their everyday life. The concept of panoptical gazes are developed in regard to the young Muslims’ narratives of being looked upon, and the different strategies of positioning they utilize are studied and identified. The first strategy is to confront stereotyping prejudices and gazes, thereby attempting to position oneself in a counteracting way. The second is to transform and try to normalise external characteristics, such as clothing and other symbols that indicate Muslimness. A third strategy is to play along and allow the prejudice in question to remain unchallenged. A fourth is to join and participate in religious communities and develop an alternate sense of belonging to a wider community of Muslims. The concept of panoptical gazes are related to narratives on belonging, and the embodied experience of home which points towards new avenues of understanding the process of othering and the possibilities of negotiating the position as Other.

Denne artikel udforsker mulighederne for at udtænke et begreb om fællesskab indenfor et poststrukturalistisk paradigme. Der er skrevet meget om relationer, grupper og inklusion, men fællesskab er i mindre grad et teoretiseret og analysereret begreb. Ambitionen er teoretisk at arbejde mig frem til en poststrukturalistisk informeret konceptualisering af fællesskab på basis af en empirisk interesse i at undersøge unge muslimers deltagelse i religiøse fællesskaber i København. Fem dimensioner identificeres som særlig vigtige i denne forbindelse 1. Fællesskab som proces. 2. Fællesskab som noget man kan tale om, og som noget, der konstant forhandles. 3. Fællesskab som situeret og forbundet med subjektivering 4. Fællesskab som hverken overindividuel eller subjektiv bevægelse og 5. Fællesskab som forbundet med belonging. Artiklen bevæger sig imellem teoretisk og empirisk analyse og inddrager et fokus på belonging som en central dimension i forståelsen af konstruktionen af fællesskaber.

The purpose of this chapter is to present an analysis of school children's practice of Muslimness in and around school. Based on qualitative interviews with Muslim school children about their everyday life and the practice of religiosity it is shown in which ways Muslimness plays into subjectivity and processes of becoming. The act of prayer (salat) is used as a point of departure in understanding how it is possible to position oneself as a Muslim in regard to secular and religious discourses present in school and society. The analysis shows how religiosity is intrinsically linked to subjectivity and specifically points towards how the individual child with a Muslim background has to decode the existing ways possible to become a proper pupil, a proper Muslim and ultimately a proper subject in the different contexts he/she traverses in his everyday life.