Transgressing community: the case of Muslims in a twenty-first-century British city

Abstract

This paper draws on ethnographic research carried out in Birmingham, UK – a city significant for its sizeable Muslim population and its iconic role in the history of minority ethnic settlement in Britain – to consider how associations of place and ethnicity work in different ways to inform ideas about ‘Muslim community’ in twenty-first-century Britain. The paper charts happenings around a local event in an area of majority Asian settlement and how representations of the area as a place of Muslim community were used to implicate it in the ‘war on terror’. The paper goes on to show how this sensibility is disrupted by Muslims themselves through alternative engagements with space and ethnicity. The paper argues that these offer a ground for making Muslim community in ways that actively engage with histories and patterns of ethnic settlement in the city rather than being determined by them.

Keywords:

• Muslims
• community
• space
• Birmingham
• Sparkbrook

Notes

1. ‘Mystery CCTV lamp posts spark outrage in Moseley.’ http://www.birminghammail.net/news/birminghamnews/2010/04/17/mysterycctv-lamp-posts-spark-outrage-inmoseley-97319-26259572/

2. The following news articles appeared in the Guardian at the height of the controversy: ‘Surveillance cameras in Birmingham track Muslims’ every move.’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/04/surveillance-cameras-birmingham-muslims ‘Surveillance cameras spring up in Muslim areas – the targets? Terrorists.’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/04/birmingham-surveillance-cameras-muslim-community?intcmp=239

3. See report by Thames Valley Police entitled ‘Project Champion Review: An independent review of the commissioning, direction, control and oversight of Project Champion; including the information given to, and the involvement of, the community in this project from the initiation of the scheme up to 4 July 2010.’ http://www.statewatch.org/news/2010/oct/uk-project-champion-police-report.pdf

4. ‘Police apologise for Birmingham spy camera outrage.’ http://www.birminghammail.net/news/birmingham-news/2010/07/05/police-apologise-for-spy-camera-outrage-97319-26787014

5. The Hubb is the actual name of the space discussed in this paper. I am grateful to its owners for allowing me to use its real name.

6. However, the idea of alienated Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities had been advanced in policy debates much earlier (Modood, Beishon and Virdee 1994).

7. Most notable are the studies carried by John Rex and his colleauges in the 1960s and 1970s and also work by various members of Warwick University's long-standing Centre for Ethnic Studies. See also Hall et al. (1978).

8. For an example of immediate celebration of Muslim political agency in the wake of the Bradford West by-election in April 2012, see ‘British Muslims and Local Democracy after Bradford.’ http://www.opendemocracy.net/idea/parveen-akhtar/british-muslims-and-local-democracy-after-bradford

9. See Defeat of the Champion, a film by Ken Fero and Tariq Mehmood showing the role of community and civil rights activists in bringing down Project Champion. Available at http://vimeo.com/35962437

10. Translated into Arabic (and Urdu), this term means ‘to invoke or remember’. It is also used, as it is here, to describe a collective session where individuals gather and spend time often-repeating utterances that invoke God. The purpose sometimes is to enter into a trance-like state.

11. This term refers to a form of brotherhood among Sufis and is commonly associated with North Africa and Iran. Zawiyya is also used to describe a physical space where such brotherhoods meet.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ajmal Hussain

AJMAL HUSSAIN is Research Associate within the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Languages and Diversity at Aston University in Birmingham