The Lived Experience of Being Muslim among British Youth of Middle Eastern Origin

Over the past two decades, Islam has been represented and understood as equivalent, or conducive to, cultural and religious fundamentalism, political extremism, and terrorism in British public debate. This has significantly affected British Muslims of Middle Eastern origins and their communities as, by being systematically positioned as the opposite of Western culture and the values of liberal democracy in domestic debates, they have been seen as adhering to religion and culture that hinders their cultural and social integration. In addition, the ongoing debates on immigration have often converged with those focusing on Islam, giving rise to discourses defining Muslim immigration from the Middle East and North Africa as a problem.

The diversity of young people of Middle Eastern origin in the UK and their cultures, as well as the processes of identity formation in which they engage in the current political and cultural context, have not been widely explored. While considerable work has focused on Islamophobia and what can be called the racialisation of Muslims in the UK and in Europe, relatively little research has explored the ways in which young Muslims of Middle Eastern origin develop their own self-identifications and their own emotional and practical affinities and links with the societies in which they live, but also transnational connections with the societies of provenance and “significant” others further afield.

The underlying approach of this project is to enable researchers and policymakers to get a better sense of the communities in question, the cultural processes and politics unfolding within them, and formulate responses to challenges posed by their relative marginalization. Serving as a pilot exploration, this project aims to understand how such identifications, affinities, and politics are constructed, maintained, and adapted, engaging with this dimension of agency in identity formation. The project also seeks to challenge the boundaries separating researcher and informant and develop appropriate methodologies for future research.

This project builds on Dr Sofos' earlier research and publications:

• S. A. Sofos, Exploring Muslim Identities in Europe, Islam in Europe Research Project blog, July 2020. 

• S. A. Sofos and R. Tsagarousianou, Islam in Europe: Public Spaces and Civic Networks, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 

This project is funded by the LSE Research and Impact Support Fund (RISF) and the LSE Research Infrastructure and Investment Fund (RIIF).