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Reluctant pluralists: European Muslims and essentialist identities.
- Source :
-
Ethnic & Racial Studies . Sep2015, Vol. 38 Issue 11, p1868-1885. 18p. - Publication Year :
- 2015
-
Abstract
- An emerging consensus among scholars of Muslim political and social identity suggests that Western Muslims live out an anti-essentialist critique of identity construction. Considering this view, this paper examines a cross-national comparison of British Bangladeshis in London and Spanish Moroccans in Madrid that solicits the perceptions of working-class Muslim men. While the results indeed reaffirm respondents' concomitant relationships to a variety of identity paradigms, interview content demonstrates that subjects' multiplicity is complicated by their desire to meet – not reject – the essentialist standards of belonging to the identity paradigms discursively available to them. Rather than defiantly cherry-picking preferred characteristics of religion, ethnicity and nationality, individuals' responses suggest that they are trying to fulfil perceived standards of authenticity. Such a contention helps explain the prevalence of Western Muslims' expressed and well-documented ‘identity crisis’, suggests the enduring relevance of identity essentialisms, and more broadly, complicates post-modern conceptions of identity formation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 01419870
- Volume :
- 38
- Issue :
- 11
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Ethnic & Racial Studies
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 103642224
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2014.920092