Respect and Respectability amongst Second-Generation Arab and Muslim Australian Men

Abstract

This paper explores contrasting dimensions of the politics of recognition for second-generation immigrants by tracing the shift from adolescence to adulthood experienced by a group of young men of Arabic-speaking background. These young men were first interviewed in the 1990s when, as teenagers, they belonged to a group of friends that styled themselves as a “gang” as a way of negotiating the complex dynamics of friendship, ethnicity and masculinity and the desire for a sense of social power via respect gained through fear. Almost a decade later, these men still defined themselves in terms of questions of ethnicity, but voiced a different set of concerns. They had become “respectable” young adults – educated and employed. They sought respect through different strategies, which required that their reputation be convertible across different domains. These two moments in their life histories represent something of the contrasting logics of social inclusion and exclusion around the central themes of respect and respectability; the kinds of social recognition their embodied and cultural capital can confer.

Keywords:

• Arab-Australians
• Cultural Capital
• Recognition
• Respect
• Youth

Notes

1. This research was conducted with Scott Poynting and Paul Tabar.