Belonging, Assimilating or Radicalising: How are femininity, religion and citizenship negotiated by 3 generations of Muslim Women?

The focus of my project has been amended to reflect both the changes to the socio-political landscape relating to issues of Islam, radicalisation and gender as well as to mirror they ways in which my own research interests have developed. In my original proposal I intended to focus on the ways in which young Muslim men navigated issues of identity and belonging in the context of the 'Trojan Horse' scandal in Birmingham. However, since the initial project's conception, the relevance of the 'Trojan Horse' scandal has declined, making the context of my ordinal study quite dated. As such, I reoriented my study towards the wider context of citizenship and Islam in the UK, as I felt it would be problematic to contextualise the research on an event that has since declined in relevance. In particular, data collection would have to be retrospective and therefore quite limited in scope.

Moreover, having deepened my review of the contemporary literature, I felt that a study investigating faith and gender identity in relation to processes of radicalisation and citizenship remains necessary but that it would be better to hone in on the ways in which Muslim women negotiate these dynamics. Indeed, much of the existing literature has explored the relationship between radicalisation, belonging and masculinities but there are few that investigate how women are constituted and self-constitute within these frameworks. Moreover, I found that when Muslim women are the focus of research there is a tendency to victimise and objectify them and as such they are very rarely asked for their views and presented as subjects of research. As such, I would like my study to act as a corrective to the existing scholarship by addressing the issue of Muslim women being talked about but rarely talked with.

To that end, my revised research question is: Belonging, Assimilating or Radicalising: How are femininity, religion and citizenship negotiated by 3 generations of Muslim Women? The study aims to explore how different generations of Muslim women understand their relationship with the State and how, or indeed whether, they constitute themselves as citizens. As such, my research will involve a snapshot analysis of 3 generations of Muslim Women, where I will cover themes such as belonging, identity, radicalisation, inclusion, exclusion, nationhood and faith. I will take a mixed methods approach, including focus groups and follow-up face to face interviews. All participants will be women who identify as Muslim and who are based in Birmingham. I intend to carry out 4 focus groups, one with each of the three generations of women and one with a mix of generation. I will follow up with depth interviews based on participant uptake.