Amelia Johns

Religiosity, Citizenship and Belonging: The Everyday Experiences of Young Australian Muslims

Abstract Since 11 September 2001 Muslim Diasporas have emerged as objects of anxiety in Western societies. Underlying this (in)security-driven problematisation is the question of whether Muslims living in the West have the capacity to become fully active citizens while maintaining their religious beliefs, rituals and practices. This apprehension has prompted reactionary government programmes, particularly targeting young Muslims. Such responses fail to recognise the societal capacities that practising Muslims possess, including those informed by the ethical precepts of Islamic faith. This paper argues that it is timely to explore expressions of Islamic religiosity as they are grounded in everyday multicultural environments. The paper draws on survey data and interviews conducted with Muslims living in Melbourne, Australia. We take into consideration key variables of age and generation to highlight how young, practising Muslims enact citizenship through Islamic rituals and faith-based practices and traditions. The paper will draw from key findings to argue that these performances provide a foundation for exploring ways of ‘living’ together in a manner that privileges ethics central to Islamic faith traditions.

Examining Islamic religiosity and civic engagement in Melbourne

With geopolitical concerns surrounding the rise of militant, transnational groups who draw on Islamic texts for legitimacy, the place of Islam in western societies has become a source of anxiety, fear and suspicion. The central concern is whether Muslims living in the West have the capacity to become fully active citizens. This article uses quantitative and qualitative methods to examine whether Islamic religiosity is a predictor for civic engagement and active citizenship among Muslims living in Melbourne, Australia. The findings show that organized religiosity can be a strong predictor of civic engagement, countering the discourses that demonize Islam as a source of radicalization and social disengagement. While the findings show that suspicion of divisive forces and lack of trust in public institutions might prevent some young Muslims from engaging in formal political participation, grassroots civic engagement enables Muslims to demonstrate care and feel like active citizens of the Australian community without compromising core religious values.

Addressing the “Muslim Question”

The question of whether Islam and Muslims belong in the West has been the subject of considerable political “debate” well before the events of 9/11. Indeed, subsequent events, though different but connected, have unfolded on the international scene as the “War on Terror”. This question has undoubtedly attracted public attention and the answers are more polarised nowadays as we live in the highly mediatised shadow of Al-Qa’eda and its more violent incarnation, the Islamic State (IS). Indeed, the clash of civilisation thesis advanced by Samuel Huntington had at its core a philosophical and practical assumption that Islam and the West are on a collision course because of their divergent cultural and value systems. In other words the cultural fault line that divides the Muslim world from the West is not only about democracy but also about ethics and values. The excessive securitisation of Islam and its public construction as “alien”, “foreign”, “threatening” and altogether “incompatible” with Western democratic values adds weight to the self-fulfilling prophecy that sees nothing but violent clashes in history that stretch from the Crusades to the War on Terror.

After Cronulla: ‘where the bloody hell are we now?’

In December 2005, in the predominantly Anglo surf community of Cronulla, in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire, a skirmish between two lifesavers and young men of Lebanese cultural heritage precipitated eve...

Collaborative Partnerships and Gatekeepers in Online Research Recruitment

In their discussion on the ethics of using social media as a research recruitment tool, Gelinas and colleagues (2017) note the importance of seeking permission from moderators of intimate online groups (e.g., cancer support groups) as a form of transparency and trust building. However, this consideration is absent from their checklists for both investigator and reviewer. And while they highlight the importance of investigators setting clear expectations with research participants about posting information online that may compromise the integrity of the study, little is mentioned as to how best to achieve these expectations. Thus, in reflecting upon the research ethics and qualitative research methods literature, we argue that a collaborative partnership should be sought and established between communities of interest and “gatekeepers,” or moderators, to mitigate issues of trust, study integrity, and respect for participants during study recruitment. Within the social media context, gatekeepers are moderators, administrators, or managers of online communities who have elevated group privileges and are given the responsibility to best represent and protect a group’s interests and ethos. Gatekeepers are uniquely situated to serve as legitimate intermediaries between investigators and potentially vulnerable or difficult-toaccess online communities, and to prevent harm or misrepresentation. They are able to monitor unanticipated issues (e.g., members posting about the study), diffuse knowledge about the study across group members (and help defuse distrust and alienation), and mediate member objections or concerns about the study (Wallwork 2008). They may provide permission to include the group in a study, serve as a consultant between investigator and potential participants in terms of study recruitment strategies and conduct, or aid in setting and ensuring expectations between researcher and participant. More explicitly, the World Health Organization (2011) recommends: “Researchers should actively engage with communities in decision-making about the design and conduct of research (including the informed consent process), while being sensitive to and respecting communities’ cultural, traditional, and religious practices.” Within biomedical research ethics, a few models have been proposed for appropriate community engagement through gatekeepers. Weijer and Emanuel (2000) have previously provided strategies for the development of protections for communities through a concerted understanding of the diversity/heterogeneity of communities, providing suggestions on topics ranging from consulting on protocol development to disclosing information through transparent engagement. They also note that the degree of group cohesiveness increases the moral justification for fostering more involved partnerships in research (Weijer and Emanuel 2000). On the contrary, communities may lack cohesiveness at a membership level but may have strong ties to the group’s mission or have moral claims on research conduct given the potential for harm or exploitation of vulnerable community members (Wallwork 2008). Collaborative partnerships through mutual respect and acknowledgment of community differences have also been proposed to minimize exploitation and to give communities more autonomy in deciding their level of participation (Emanuel et al. 2004). In digital qualitative research and ethnography, an insider–outsider relationship is often utilized as a means of mitigating ethical issues around misrepresentation, exploitation, and invasion of privacy (Morris et al. 1999; Johns and Rattani 2016). The insider–outsider relationship stems from the researcher classifications of an “emic” standpoint as the study of behaviors from an intimate understanding of a cultural system, and an “etic” standpoint as coming from outside a cultural system (Morris et al. 1999)—either position alone offers a partial or incomplete knowledge of the community being engaged. Nonetheless, the familiarity of the community that the “insider” (e.g., gatekeeper, group member) possesses allows for easier negotiation and access. The “outsider” (i.e., researcher) possesses a critical distance that allows him or her to be objective about participant selection. However, an “outsider’s” lack of familiarity with a community’s values or practices may lead to members being offended or harmed by possible misrepresentation (Tinker and Armstrong 2008). Community engagement can be challenging and frustrating to appropriately execute. Additionally, identifying

Grounding Religiosity in Urban Space: insights from multicultural Melbourne

ABSTRACT Cities within Western democratic societies have long been regarded as sites where secular visions of modernity and citizenship are enacted. Today, however, ethno-religious diversity has emerged as a deep and vibrant part of urban social life and public culture, shaping place-making practices that nourish ‘post-secular’ belonging and practices of citizenship. Place-making and citizenship practices that are shaped by ethno-religious diversity have the potential to transform public spaces highlighting common humanity and ‘shared vulnerability’ (J. Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (London and New York: Verso, 2004)). The visibility and embodiment of Islamic religious beliefs, ritual observances, and cultural expressions often circulate feelings of suspicion and unease for non-Muslim co-citizens. In this paper we deviate from this dominant narrative to argue that ‘everyday’ forms of religiosity that underpin and shape social and political actions performed in public space make an important contribution to the multicultural milieu of the nominally ‘Western’ city, shaping public spaces that resonate with hope and shared responsibility. The paper draws on participant observation, photo-ethnography and interviews with Melbourne residents, of Muslim faith, and predominantly of Egyptian, Turkish and Afghani (Hazara) cultural heritage.

Social networks and perceptions of intergenerational difference among migrant youth in Australia

‘Intergenerational difference’ has become a lens through which to view issues of identity, social connectedness, belonging and agency in migrant youth research, highlighting that differences in the aspirations of migrant youth and their parents shape young people’s experiences. The article will present findings from a mixed methods study of social network participation among three migrant youth cohorts in two Australian cities to address a perceived ‘gap’ among migrant youth and parents’ aspirations for social network formation and participation. The paper will first examine current theoretical approaches to intergenerational challenges in migrant youth research. It will then introduce ‘intersectionality’ as a concept offering a more nuanced understanding of the challenges and hopes of migrant youth for whom social networks can be a gateway towards belonging and connectedness. This, however, requires a negotiation of complex structural, social and cultural factors.

Flagging White Nationalism ‘After Cronulla’: From the Beach to the Net

ABSTRACT In this article, I use a case study analysis of two white nationalist movements online, in the Australian context, to consider whether the prevalence and everyday uses of social media by white nationalist groups today has impacted on race relations and multiculturalism in Australia 12 years after the Cronulla riots. Social media affordances present a set of conditions that were absent during the 2005 riot, and yet, are today mobilising distinct variants of white nationalism online. Rather than these expressions being locally situated, social media allows these performances to be connected up virtually, extending the white nationalists’ capacity to occupy and terrorise a range of networked public and intimate spaces and influence mainstream political culture. Nonetheless social media affordances, which situate these movements in a virtual ‘ecology of subcultures’ also contributes to their instability and ambivalence, with the uncivil ‘trolling’ practices of online movements undermining broader social goals and contributing to even more extreme and unstable expressions online.

Critical global citizenship: contextualising citizenship and globalisation

Abstract This introductory paper to our first issue provides reflection on the concept of critical global citizenship at both theoretical and practical levels. We maintain that ‘citizenship’, irrespective of its level of articulation (i.e. national, international, global, etc.) remains an issue that reflects a status, a feeling and practices that are intrinsically interlinked. As a legal status, formal citizenship allows individuals to form a sense of belonging within a political community and, therefore, empowers them to act and perform their citizenship within the spatial domains of the nation-state. Critical global citizenship, asks these same individuals not so much to neglect these notions of belonging and practice to a particular locale, but to extend such affinities beyond the territorial boundaries of their formal national membership and to think critically and ethically about their local, national and global relationship with those who are different from themselves. Making a case for a critical global citizenship, however, also requires acknowledging material inequalities that affect the most vulnerable (i.e. migrants, asylum seekers, those experiencing poverty, etc.) and which mean that efforts to cultivate global citizenship orientations to address social injustice are not enacted on an even playing field. As such, a critical global citizenship approach espouses a performative citizenship that is at once democratic and ethical, as well as being aimed at achieving social peace and sustainable justice, but which is also affected by material conditions of inequality that require political solutions and commitment from individuals, states, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society organisations.

Bloods, crips and southern cross soldiers: gang identities in Australia

Drawing on contemporary critical social theories and diverse methodologies, A Critical Youth Studies for the 21st Century explores the educational, employment, cultural and embodied issues that confront young people, and those who work with ...