Reluctant pluralists: European Muslims and essentialist identities

Abstract

An emerging consensus among scholars of Muslim political and social identity suggests that Western Muslims live out an anti-essentialist critique of identity construction. Considering this view, this paper examines a cross-national comparison of British Bangladeshis in London and Spanish Moroccans in Madrid that solicits the perceptions of working-class Muslim men. While the results indeed reaffirm respondents' concomitant relationships to a variety of identity paradigms, interview content demonstrates that subjects' multiplicity is complicated by their desire to meet – not reject – the essentialist standards of belonging to the identity paradigms discursively available to them. Rather than defiantly cherry-picking preferred characteristics of religion, ethnicity and nationality, individuals' responses suggest that they are trying to fulfil perceived standards of authenticity. Such a contention helps explain the prevalence of Western Muslims' expressed and well-documented ‘identity crisis’, suggests the enduring relevance of identity essentialisms, and more broadly, complicates post-modern conceptions of identity formation.

Keywords:

• Muslims
• identity
• nationality
• Islam
• UK
• Spain
• Europe

Acknowledgements

I extend my sincere thanks to Tim Peace, Mohammad Sartawi, Tom K. Wong, Jill Simone Gross, Sara Wallace Goodman, Alberta Giorgi, John Gledhill and the various anonymous reviewers who provided helpful comments and suggestions. I am also grateful for the guidance of David Held, Henrietta Moore, Jennifer Hochschild, Terri Givens, John Eade, Abdulkader Sinno, Erik Bleich, Peter Mandaville and John Bowen.

Funding

This work was made possible thanks to grants from the Santander Group and the Newby Trust, support from Instituto Juan March and the London School of Economics, and scholarships from the trusts of Baroness Birk and Ralph Miliband.

Additional information

Funding

Funding: This work was made possible thanks to grants from the Santander Group and the Newby Trust, support from Instituto Juan March and the London School of Economics, and scholarships from the trusts of Baroness Birk and Ralph Miliband.

Notes on contributors

Justin Gest

JUSTIN GEST is a Lecturer on Government and Sociology at Harvard University. As of August 2014, he will be an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University. He is also serves as the Co-founder and Deputy Director of the Migration Studies Unit at the London School of Economics and Political Science.