Cosmopolitan belonging and diaspora: second-generation British Muslim women travelling to South Asia

This paper traces the ways in which British born Muslim women self-identify with Britain and South Asia. More specifically, the article explores the ways in which the young women express their sense of belonging and convey cosmopolitan identities while they self-reflect upon their travels to their parents' homeland. The paper argues that the women do not view Britain and South Asian nations in discrete terms along religious and cultural dimensions but with frequent visits in different stages in their lives come to understand these nation-states in porous ways. For example, they self-identify with South Asia because of South Asian culture's emphasis on the family and express openness and tolerance towards their parents' homeland. On occasions they express tourist-like appreciation of their parents' homelands. Yet in other instances, they reflect upon the ways in which they negotiate foreign and challenging circumstances. At the same time they consider Britain to be their home because they find that women have relatively greater independence and rights here. Some of the women also find it easier in Britain to express their religious rights. For example, they find that in Pakistan, although a Muslim nation, it is not customary to wear a headscarf but rather the traditional dress. Much of the literature that has explored diasporic young people's experience has focused on questions of identity through the lens of their country of residence. However, given the age of global interconnectedness and the decreasing salience of nation as an overarching feature of identity, it becomes significant to explore in greater detail questions of belonging, cosmopolitanism, and nation. Examining the narratives of British born Muslim Asian women, this study conceptualizes identity around ‘belonging’ and ‘cosmopolitanism’. Data are based on in-depth interviews of 25 second-generation British Asian Muslim women meeting regularly at Islamic study circles. Respondents ranged from ages of 19 to 28 years old who were mainly middle class professionals and university students.     

缅甸罗兴迦人问题的历史变迁初探

缅甸罗兴迦人问题的产生与发展有着深厚复杂的历史背景,引起世人普遍关注.本文试图就国际上存在争议的罗兴迦人身份问题、若开穆斯林与佛教徒的历史纷争以及罗兴迦人的发展脉络作一梳理.     

Concepts of dialogue as counterterrorism: narrating the self-reform of the Muslim Other

Since 9/11, the terrorist is often awarded the position of the radical Other: the personified existential threat to the West. The counterterrorism strategy presented by the Danish government describes itself as covering a ‘broad spectrum’ of efforts. It includes an ‘active foreign policy’ in relation to the Muslim world and an ‘active integration policy’ in relation to Muslim migrants. Both inside and outside the nation-state, efforts range from ‘hard power’ security strategies of elimination and control involving military, police and intelligence operations, to ‘soft power’ strategies of information, partnerships and dialogue. This article analyses Danish counterterrorism policy narratives to identify the concepts of dialogue implied and the positions awarded to less-than-radical Muslim Others. This article finds that Muslims might – especially after the Danish Muhammad cartoon affair – in counterterrorism dialogue find a position for talking back, even if it is still a position circumscribed by control and securitisation.     

Looking at Muslims: the visibility of Islam in contemporary French cinema

ABSTRACT

Tarr analyses the representation of Islam in five feature films made since 2006 that centre on the changing identities of Muslims in contemporary France. She locates the films within the context of the rise in Islamophobia in France following 9/11 and anxieties about immigration and terrorism, but also in relation to France's troubled postcolonial history and French republican ideology. In particular, the French notion of laïcité (secularism) has given rise to active hostility to any public expression of religious or cultural difference, particularly on the part of Muslims. Cinematic representations of Muslims, and particularly of the children of migrants from the Maghreb, have, therefore, since the mid-1980s, been treated with caution in order not to alienate mainstream Franco-French audiences and to facilitate the second generation's integration into French society. However, the five feature films addressed here—two mainstream popular comedies, Mauvaise foi/Bad Faith (2006) and L'Italien/The Italian (2010), and three independent, low budget, auteur-led, realist films, Dans la vie/Two Ladies (2008), Dernier maquis (2008) and La Désintégration/Disintegration (2012)—offer new narratives that challenge fears of Islam by foregrounding the protagonists' negotiation of their Muslim identities in a French context and, by implication, argue for the integration of Islam as a legitimate referent of French identity. However, their construction of Islam does not extend to positive representations of young veiled women, and they thus still risk confirming the oppressive majority view that certain practices associated with Islam, such as the wearing of the veil, are incompatible with the secularism of the French Republic.