ESRC Final Year Conference Poster 2014

Active citizenship, dissent and civic consciousness: An ethnographic study of the cultural politics of young British Muslims Researcher: Anisa Mustafa - ESRC Funded Doctoral Research Student (School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham Methods: Multi-sited ethnography in the Midlands region of the UK Participants: Young adults aged 18-35 years from a Muslim background engaging in non-electoral forms of political and civic activism

Aims of the study To gain an empirically informed understanding of:  How and why political and civic activism is conducted in civil society  How these mobilisations relate to mainstream political institutions  How they relate to citizenship and belonging in contemporary Britain Theoretical background A focus on non-electoral forms of political and civic activism follows from the argument that such mobilisations play a key role in engendering civic consciousness and developing the capacity for active citizenship among minority citizens (Werbner, 2000). This is also the domain where ‘cultural politics’ concerned mainly, but not exclusively, with contestation over how society is imagined and organised, have gained prominence through the rise of social movements. The cultural politics of young adult Muslims is a relatively unfamiliar area in need of deeper exploration in the post 9/11 context due to the increasingly ‘precarious’ status of Muslim citizenship in the wake of the War on Terror, which has rendered their participation in mainstream politics more challenging (O’Loughlin and Gillespie, 2012). In a related context, while evidence of political apathy and low electoral participation by young citizens generally induces fears of a ‘democratic deficit’ (Norris, 2003) in the case of Muslims lack of engagement in mainstream politics and civil society provokes a much more alarmist response based on assumptions of links to radicalisation and extremism.

Provisional Findings 1. New political repertories of action This study provides empirical evidence to support the claims of a number of theorists (Norris, 2002, 2003; Nash, 2010, Marsh et al, 2007, O’Toole and Gale, 2013) that young citizens are not as apathetical and disengaged as feared but rather their politics is conducted through new forms of engagement that are personal, direct, non-institutional and concerned with culture.

References Marsh, D., O'Toole, T. and Jones, S. (2007) Young People and Politics in the UK: Apathy of Alienation?, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Nash, K. (2010) Contemporary Political Sociology: Globalization, Politics and Power, Second ed., Malden, Oxford, Chichester: Blackwell Publishers Ltd. Norris, P. (2002) Democratic Phoenix: Reinventing Political Activism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Norris, P. (2003) 'Young people and political activism: from the politics of loyalties to the politics of choice?', Report for the Council of Europe Symposium, Mimeo, Harvard University. O'Loughlin, B. and Gillespie, M. (2012) 'Dissenting Citizenship? Young People and Political Participation in the Media-security Nexus', Parliamentary Affairs, 65, 115 – 137. O'Toole, T. and Gale, R. (2013) Political Engagement amongst Ethnic Minority Young People: Making a Difference, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Werbner, P. (2000) 'Divided Loyalties, Empowered Citizenship? Muslims in Britain', Citizenship Studies, 4(3), 307 – 324

All photos by the researcher Anisa Mustafa

2. Cultural politics and power The political repertoires evident in this study indicate resistance to particular forms and technologies of power as analysed and described by Michel Foucault. The privileging of culture as the central arena in which to mount political and civic struggles suggests that participants locate power in the capacity to shape and control public opinion and behaviours. 3. Citizenship and belonging Despite the challenges of securitisation and marginalisation young adult Muslims engage in a range of political and civic activities that can be seen to constitute a distinct social movement aimed at claiming citizenship on their own terms. Like other contemporary social movements, this is a political project to turn negative difference into positive difference by asserting aspects of identity that are perceived to be socially denied or stigmatised but without reifying group boundaries.