Yasmin Hussain

Citizenship, Ethnicity and Identity British Pakistanis after the 2001 ‘Riots’

There have been few studies of citizenship as an identity. This article explores citizenship as an identity among British Pakistanis in Bradford after the ‘riot’ in 2001, using qualitative data. The 2001 ‘riots’, the political successes of the British National Party and the events after September 11 pushed British-Pakistani Muslims into the forefront of national political conflicts around citizenship, national identity and allegiance to the state. Through the analysis of interviews with both first- and second-generation British Pakistanis we examine how citizenship as a mode of identity is contextualized by them in relation to national identity, Islam and ethnicity. We identify the two generations’ different ‘citizenship identities’. The second generation have a strong British identity as ‘British citizens’ with the ‘natural rights’ of a British-born citizen. In contrast the first-generation migrants from Pakistan express identities as ‘denizens’, living but not belonging in a foreign country, who remain because their children are now ‘British’.

South Asian Disabled Women: Negotiating Identities

This paper is concerned with the identities of disabled South Asian women within Britain. It presents empirical evidence concerning how disability, gender and ethnicity are negotiated simultaneously for young disabled Muslim and Sikh women. How these identities are negotiated is analysed in the realms of family, religion and marriage drawing on qualitative interviews with the young women, their parents and siblings. The paper argues against ideas of singular identity or the hierarchisation of identities or oppressions. The paper contributes to contemporary debates about how young South Asian women are constructing new forms of identity in Britain.

Negotiating Mobility: South Asian Women and Higher Education:

Using qualitative and quantitative data, this article explains how South Asian women’s attendance at university in Britain went from being exceptional in the 1970s to routine in the present century. Focusing upon the reflexivity of young South Asian women around issues of education, subject choice, marriage and careers in relation to their parents and their communities offers a better understanding than currently dominant social capital explanations of South Asian educational success. We show that conceptualizing reflexivity in a variety of forms following Archer better accounts for the different educational trajectories at the intersection of relations of ethnicity, class, gender and religion. The educational and career outcomes and transformations entail complex forms of resistance, negotiation and compromise across intersecting identities. These developments are transforming class and gender relations within South Asian ethnicities.

Funny Looks: British Pakistanis' experiences after 7 July 2005

Abstract This article examines the experiences of British Pakistanis living in West Yorkshire after the 7 July bombings in London in 2005. Based on qualitative interviews conducted in the Beeston and Hyde Park areas of Leeds and the nearby town of Dewsbury in 2006, the article considers a number of important themes that have emerged since the bombings, including: locality and segregation, views about the London bombers, experiences of racism and Islamophobia, citizenship and identity.

CONFLICT AND COHESION: OFFICIAL CONSTRUCTIONS OF “COMMUNITY” AROUND THE 2001 RIOTS IN BRITAIN

This essay deconstructs the discourses of community that emerged around the “riots” in Northern England in the summer of 2001. The use of ideas such as “community cohesion” in official reports (Burnley Task Force, 2001; Cantle, 2001; Ritchie, 2001) and other discourses in response to the riots is critically analysed. We consider some theoretical issues surrounding how “community” functions within contemporary governmentality using the reports as exemplars of this phenomenon. In particular we examine the ways in which these discourses and the “subjects” that they attempt to constitute are “racialised” and linked with other “New Labour” ideas around social integration and social responsibility. The reports should be seen attempts not only to guide policy but as attempts to reassert authority and control over ethnic minority communities. We argue that the different representations of community express the changing dominant discourses of “racialisation” of South Asian communities in Britain.

Reflexive Ethnicities: Crisis, Diversity and Re-Composition

This paper presents an analysis of how people reflexively relate to their ethnicity in the context of cultural and political crisis after the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005. Introducing a differentiated conception of reflexivity following Archer and Lash, the paper shows how cognitive, hermeneutic and aesthetic reflexivity (Lash) are expressed autonomously, communicatively and in a meta-reflexive manner (Archer) variably across and within ethnicities. Differentiated reflexive expressions of ethnicity are rooted in the politics and histories of ethnicities in relation to dominant discourses of whiteness and Britishness. The data is from a qualitative interview study of how different ethnic groups in West Yorkshire were affected by the 7/7 London bombings, with people of African-Caribbean, Black- African, Bangladeshi, Indian Pakistani and White backgrounds. The increased reflexivity of ethnic identity is seen to be rooted in the political crises generated by Britains role in and response to, the war on terror, but also biographical experiences of contextual continuities, discontinuities and incongruities of migration.

‘I know my roots are Indian but my thinking is Kiwi’: hybridisation, identity and ‘Indians’ in New Zealand

ABSTRACT This article explores identity among the South Asian diaspora in New Zealand. Using data from qualitative interviews with South Asian New Zealanders, it argues that analyses of hybridity need to consider different varieties of hybridisation in relation to ethnicity, religion, language and national identity. South Asian identities may be hybridised with ‘Kiwi’ identity variously represented as values, idealised citizenship and a White Western lifestyle. The data analysed in the paper demonstrate the independence and salience of religious as distinct from ethnic identities in the South Asian diaspora in New Zealand. Hybridisation results, in part, from a conscious strategy on the part of parents who encourage children to identify with their ethnic origins, language, nation and religion.

Late Modern Muslims: theorising Islamic identities amongst university students.

In this chapter Bagguley and Hussain reflect upon what it means to be a ‘late-modern’ Muslim student in contemporary Britain. For Muslims at university, there is both the late-modern liquid character of Islamic identities and the on-going securitisation of Islam and Muslims. It is argued that young Muslims both have ever-greater opportunities to reflect on their Islamic identities, and are forced to choose how and where to locate themselves by the ever-unfolding hegemonic securitisation of Islam. These themes are explored through how universities are increasingly required by to take on securitising roles in relation to their students through the new counter-terrorist legislation and programme known as Prevent.