Madrid’s Muslim Youth: What do Intersectional Discrimination and Resilience Mean for the Interculturalist Project?

ABSTRACT

Scholarship indicates that Spanish Muslims can face othering marked by migration and securitisation discourses. More recent studies have noted the intersectional discrimination and disadvantage experienced by Spanish Muslim youth, beyond differentiation solely due to perceived migrant background or religious affiliation. At the same time, multilevel Spanish diversity and equality policies and their implementation have attempted to pursue solidarity via recognition of pluralism in various communities, adopting interculturalist language. This work overviews the advent of interculturalist and linked anti-discrimination policy efforts in Spain, and in the Madrid Community and Municipality in particular. Within this context, it presents a recent 2016–2018 qualitative study of self-identifying Muslim youth, which found the majority of participants perceived multiple discrimination, often minimising or dismissing such experiences. It argues that in the Madrid example, Muslim youth discrimination experiences reflect historic, systemic institutional weaknesses and blind spots, particularly with respect to the racialised dimension of their ascribed alterity. Moreover, the participants’ downplaying of and resignation regarding stigmitisation indicates expectations of continued othering. While such strategies illustrate agency, they also speak to the temporal, systemic dispossession in which individuals exercise such resilience. Any authentic equality and inclusion governance or interculturalist efforts must actively address this persistent racialised differentiation.

KEYWORDS:

• Interculturalism
• discrimination experience
• Muslim youth
• Spain

Introduction

Over the past several decades, literature has documented how European Muslim youth are consistently subject to discriminatory discourses and even practices in the academic, political and societal spheres (Frisina 2010; Beaman 2016). This discrimination has been attributed to a compound othering that initially was linked to conceptualisations of Islam as pitted against ‘mainstream’ Christian or secular modern European society, and a political market that has scapegoated Muslims in a securitsation framework (Soper and Fetzer 2007; Torrekens and Jacobs 2016).

Recent use of an intersectional lens has gone beyond a focus on differentiating religiosity to explore how individuals identifying as Muslim are often singled out or stigmatised as a general population based on varying combinations of dimensions of race, ethnicity, cultural practices, national origin, regional origin, migrant and socioeconomic status (Beaman 2016; Keval 2014). In the case of Spain, this article argues the stigmatisation of Muslims historically includes racialisation (Mateo Dieste 2017; Rodríguez-Reche and Cerchiaro 2023). The unique history of Islam in the Iberian Peninsula, postcolonial ties with Morocco, twenty-first century dictatorship efforts to create a homogeneous narrative of ‘Hispanidad’ (‘Spanish-ness’), and securitisation narratives in the current century can all be argued to inform the resurgence of the image or stereotype of ‘moro’ in modern Spain (Mateo Dieste, 2017). Some authors trace the term back to the period of perceived historic conflict in the Iberian Peninsula from roughly 711–1492, purportedly establishing a dichotomy of Christianity versus Muslim and ‘Spanish’ identity versus the othered ‘moros’ (Corpas Aguirre 2010; Martín-Corrales 2021). However, in the present day sense, it should be understood as a more complex and laden term; it can be used to refer to individuals of Arab or North African origin, Muslim identifying individuals, or anyone assigned these categories, and highlights the socially constructed and inextricable linking and confusion of visible differentiating markers alongside religious, ethnic and racial hierarchies in addition to securitisation discourses (El Tayeb 2011; Douhaibi and Amazian 2019; Ramírez and Mijares 2021).

With the advent of modern immigration patterns beginning in the 1980s, postcolonial histories, and certain political narratives, the Spanish institutional approach to diversity initially consisted of different migration and integration frameworks, rather than anti-discrimination and citizenship models (Astor and Griera 2016). However, even before modern immigration, historically and until today, Spain remains nationally, linguistically and religiously diverse, with several historic ethnic groups throughout its territory (Rodríguez-García 2022). Spain’s diversity governance has been transitioning from centralised to multilevel and decentralised in the wake of its modern democracy, alongside multilevel shifts in the language of difference and discrimination. While the central government still holds exclusive jurisdiction in criminal and procedural law, civil legislation, labour and social security, the regional level Autonomous Communities hold varying degrees of authority in the areas of education, health and culture, employment, housing and social services, while municipalities may work in social inclusion (Godenau et al. 2015). Institutional attempts to accommodate pluralism have included national level efforts to delegate diversity management, in the face of critiques that institutional anti-discrimination protections and approaches to Islam remain lacking or problematic (Lems and Planet Contreras 2023). Within these dynamics, the language of interculturalism has surfaced, particularly at the city level.

Within Europe, the interculturalist framework has been designed to improve on past integration models, and offers to recognise several dimensions at play in diversity management discussions: the backlash against multicultural policies of the past decades; the 2008 financial crisis repercussions, impacting policy spending; the reality of multiple identity and transnational space; and avoiding framing diversity in terms of birthplace or nationality, thus rejecting theoretical approaches of cultural essentialism (Cantle 2012). This interculturalist agenda takes place in a Europe that continues to experience growing populism and neoconservatism, alongside currents of xenophobia, racism and intolerance, reflecting tensions between interculturalist policy attempts and the actual socio-political climate. In the case of Spain, the Vox party, with xenophobic and securitisation discourses as part of its party platform, has been gaining popularity and representation in both Spanish national and regional elections since 2018 (La Razon 2019; Turnbull-Dugarte et al. 2020). However, such currents merely build upon historical institutional and societal stigmatisation of Islam (Mateo Dieste 2017).

Given the unique nature of intersectional discrimination European Muslim youth face, can and do interculturalist policies practically and sufficiently adopt and address an intersectional approach? Madrid, Spain is an illustrative case study. In Madrid (both the Autonomous Community and the Municipality), past approaches to diversity were couched in terms of migrant reception and integration plans, while recently diversity and non-discrimination initiatives have more closely mirrored an interculturalist paradigm, beginning with shifts in terminology, as with the ‘Madrid Plan for Social and Intercultural Coexistence 2004–2008’ (Pardo 2017). The interculturalist approach theoretically can lead to a reduction in xenophobic trends, particularly in its pro-active efforts towards non-discrimination (Zapata-Barrero 2018). In that context, this article takes as a point of departure an earlier qualitative study of Muslim youth self-identifying as Muslim, exploring in which other ways they identified, and with it any sense of belonging. Conducted in the Community and City of Madrid, Spain, the majority of the participants communicated experiences of discrimination, either in describing their identity construction and its reception, or in articulating such discrimination as a direct impediment to their sense of belonging to their community (in Madrid or in Spain in general).

This work examines what these Muslim youth experiences of multiple discrimination can illustrate about the current institutional climate via a specific local context, and what this implies for future attempts at Madrid Community and City interculturalist and linked anti-discrimination policy. First, the article briefly discusses discrimination, exclusion and the interculturalist approach. It then overviews diversity and anti-discrimination institutional mechanisms and policies in the Spanish context, as well as discrimination experiences of the population under study in literature to date. An outline of Madrid diversity management and non-discrimination initiatives in light of the interculturalist frame follows. With this background, the work provides the accounts of multiple discrimination as reported in the aforementioned qualitative study of self-identified Muslim youth in Madrid, noting the significance of their ‘resilience’ in the face of such experiences. It finally analyses these experiences of discrimination, questioning current interculturalist local governance development and implementation as effective measures against discrimination and racism.

Theoretical Framework: The Interculturalist Approach, Anti-discrimination, and Exclusion

Briefly, underlying theory of interculturalist normative approaches posits that diversity without policy intervention can be understood as fomenting conflict, and such diversity-related conflict can encompass racism, poverty and social exclusion (Cantle 2012). These forms of exclusion, and an understanding of exclusion and inclusion in general, have been very visible in the policy analysis of recent decades, as well as in the fields of migration and diversity studies in discussing group membership and belonging (Mascareño and Carvajal 2016). The interculturalist approach at its intersection with discrimination can serve as a tool to untangle the inclusions and exclusions that migration and diversity studies highlight.

On the one hand, advocates argue that interculturalism is not a linear product of the rise and fall of multiculturalism, or the gaps in a civic national rights-based approach, but is rather the work of the present, mutually constituted by historical and current political and social contexts (Zapata-Barrero 2017). It examines current values, discourses and understandings with the past as a resource. Discourse involves ‘procedures of exclusion,’ in which discourse is arranged, monitored and redistributed by processes that operate spatially. It becomes, ‘not simply that which translates struggles or systems of domination, but is the thing for which and by which there is struggle’ (Foucault 1981: 52–53). For example, in asserting creative identity construction or practices, European Muslim youth have resisted or negotiated dominant Islamophobic discourses (Frisina 2010; Téllez Delgado 2014; Boland 2021a). At the same time, such ‘resilience’ is operating in response to the ‘dispossession it seeks to overcome,’ and thus is still subject to the contemporary regime(s) of power in which it resides (Bracke 2016).

As such, interculturalism, in its pointed recognition of diversity as a social fact, attempts to engage with this dynamic of discourse and exclusion. It seeks to remedy past deficiencies in diversity governance by emphasising the importance of communication and contact between people from different backgrounds (including nationals), with policies encouraging this alongside anti-discrimination promotion (Zapata-Barrero 2017). It acknowledges that people from different backgrounds do not have the same opportunities in society, attempting to remedy exclusionary actors or ‘procedures’ that hinder these contact zones, including legal, institutional and structural (Hellgren and Zapata-Barrero 2022). In challenging dominant narratives of societal unity in homogeneity, interculturalist policies seek diversity as a common value that unifies (Matejskova and Antonisch 2015). However, interculturalist policies may (albeit unintentionally) exclude, at cross-purposes with their objectives or intended outcomes, as described later in this case. In this sense, ‘interculturalism’ as both academic conceptualisation and a political agenda has faced criticism that it ignores structural patterns of racism and inequality by assuming relations can be parallel rather than relational, and that separation is purportedly undesirable (Sealy 2018). Essentially, that it has not incorporated the past as a resource.

This is key because, as noted in following, some interculturalist policies and agenda seem to lack engagement with the tools to mitigate discrimination based on race. Here, race can be understood as a ‘a technology of power and control’ (Lentin 2020), drawing on subjective demographic categories based on perceived phenotypical characteristics. As Osanami and Suyemoto put it, ‘“race” associates hierarchical privilege with phenotypical categories that are, themselves, socially constructed … what characteristics are perceived as mattering, how these categories matter, and who is considered (racially) visible is constantly changing, despite individual phenotypes being unchanging’ (2022). Race can take the form of identity, alongside social categorisation or inequitable structures (Osanami Törngren and Suyemoto 2022). This understanding of exclusions and how they operate is meant to draw insights as to the relationship between interculturalism and discrimination, in the context-specific case of Madrid.

Contextualising Multilevel Diversity and Anti-Discrimination Mechanisms Alongside Discrimination Experiences and Attitudes Relating to Islam

Rather than an exhaustive account of national level Spanish so-called ‘diversity management’ and anti-discrimination frameworks and policies, what follows is a brief overview of those most relevant when examining intersectional discrimination against self-identifying Spanish Muslim youth. To begin, while the law in present day Spain proclaims religious neutrality based in its Constitution of 1978, and the 1980 Law of Religious Liberty allowed for religious pluralism (Spanish Constitution 1978; Ley Orgánica 7/1980), the state maintains a preferential cultural and institutional relationship (including in public education and the workplace) with the Catholic Church. This is based in a 1976 agreement, as at the time and in the wake of the dictatorship, Catholicism was the more prevalent religion; it is also expressly mentioned in the Constitution ( Spanish Constitution 1978; Observatorio Andalusí 2014; Camas Roda 2020). Given this asymmetry, Spain eventually formalised relationships (unaccompanied by significant policy measures) with its Protestant and Jewish leaderships, and an official agreement was brokered between the Spanish government and the Islamic Commission of Spain (Communidad Islamica de España – CIE) in April 1992 (Ley Orgánica 26/1992; López García et al. 2007). The 2004 Madrid metro system bombings and deaths attributed to Islamic fundamentalist groups with both foreign and domestic adherents contributed to the increased othering of Muslims in Spain; such Islamophobic currents created enough momentum for religious diversity management to evolve from a diplomatic issue to more of a religious minority issue (Astor and Griera 2016).

For example, the public Foundation for Pluralism and Coexistence, established in 2004, describes its mandate as encouraging the recognition and accommodation of religious diversity to ensure religious freedom and overall coexistence, including religious minority representatives, in its governance structure (La Fundación del Pluralismo y Convivencia 2021). The Foundation collaborated with the Spanish Federation of Cities and Provinces to create an Observatory for Religious Pluralism (El Observatorio del Pluralismo Religioso 2021). In what resembles an interculturalist approach, the latter works to shape local level policies via a ‘soft governance regime,’ mediating between religious communities and municipal or regional governments (Griera 2020). On the other hand, there are also institutional frameworks and bodies that directly address discrimination in the Spanish national context. The Spanish Observatory for Racism and Xenophobia (OBERAXE), established in 2000 and currently under the Spanish Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, deals with discrimination in the context of migration (OBERAXE 2021). The Spanish Ministry of the Interior also records hate crimes statistics, including for religious motivations (Ministry of the Interior 2021).

Ultimately, however, the Council for the Elimination of Racial or Ethnic Discrimination is considered Spain’s equality body. Established and operational in 2007, it fell under various government bodies, and as of the 2023 socialist (Worker’s Party) government is housed at the Ministry of Equality (Consejo para la Eliminación de la Discriminación Racial o Étnica 2023). Its duties include providing independent assistance to victims of discrimination, conducting research and evaluations, communicating and disseminating anti-discrimination initiatives (for example, holding events for dialogue) and information, and offering recommendations and independent reports (Consejo para la Eliminación de la Discriminación Racial o Étnica 2023). Expanding its engagement since a 2018 change in the government, it facilitates policy debates, including a current discussion regarding whether to include race or ethnicity in official state statistics, which is not government practice (La Moncloa 2021). This relates to a more general controversy as to whether data collection on race and ethnicity or government classification goes towards exacerbating or ameliorating discrimination, and how to reconcile the issue of discrimination within the interculturalist framework (Hellgren and Zapata-Barrero 2022).

The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI, under the Council of Europe) has criticised that the Council is not ‘autonomous,’ in that it is composed of various government representatives (Camas Roda 2020; Council of Europe 2021a). It argued there are deficiencies in legal mechanisms to address discrimination and that the equality body is little known to the public. At the same time, there is growing recognition of multiple discrimination in Spain’s institutional, academic and public discourse (Valles Martínez et al. 2017; Consejo para la Eliminación de la Discriminación Racial o Étnica 2023).

Evidence of Muslim youth discrimination experiences form part of this. A projection from various sources counts the Spanish Muslim population at around one million (Observatorio Andalusí 2016; EU Agency for Fundamental Rights 2017). Of the scarce quantitative research available, a recent OBERAXE study surveying both Muslim and non-Muslim organisations and individuals in Spain (a third of the over 500 surveyed located in the Madrid Community) noted that apart from the Roma people, ‘unfavourable sentiment’ and discrimination is most directed at Spain’s Muslim populations (Aparicio Gómez 2020). Smaller qualitative studies have repeatedly recorded multiple experiences of discrimination reported by Muslims in school, the workplace, the media and other spaces in various regions of Spain (Mijares Molina and Lems 2018; Rodríguez-Reche and Cerchiaro 2023). They can detail marginalisation particularly directed at young Muslim women and surrounding the veil (Adlbi Siba 2009; Ramírez and Mijares 2021), as well as state securitisation discourses that produce fears of youth radicalisation (Douhaibi and Amazian 2019) or gendered crimmigration narratives (Barbero González 2017). Joint civil society and government initiatives, like the Observatory for Islamophobia in the Media, report negative news coverage of Islam and Muslims in Spain, particularly around election cycles (Carrión Otero 2021).

In this vein, it is important to recognise the visibility of polemic surrounding the veil in certain parts of Spain, as it has been highlighted in the past decades of literature in other parts of Europe (Beaman 2016; El-Tayeb 2011). While purportedly the above-described anti-discrimination protections are in place, and there is no federal prohibition of the veil, legal contestations and decisions as to the right to wear the veil have played out over past decades; sentences differ depending on the setting (public education, private workplace) and the locality in which they take place (Llanos 2015). Arguments defending restriction or prohibition of veil use relate to security and public order, the neutrality of the state and laicism, laws protecting school councils and laws protecting employers; individuals attempting to exercise their right to non-discrimination face obstacles in terms of resources and institutional support (Boland 2021b). In light of this, Spanish literature addresses the veil’s multiple and varied meaning for individuals that wear it, details encounters with hijab discrimination, and notes the rhetorical fallacy of those discourses that position the veil against gender equality (Adlbi Siba 2009; Llanos 2015; Ramírez and Mijares 2021).

As interculturalist theory emphasises specific and individualised contexts, it is useful to distinguish the national context from local level, with the Madrid Community and Madrid City case study examined here. Diversity and anti-discrimination in regional and local measures can often be framed within the context of immigration, particularly as they pertain to Madrid’s Muslim communities or individuals; this could be explained by how the Muslim population in the Madrid Community may trace their descendance to North Africa (or in some cases the Levant region), given migration flows in the 1980s and 1990s (Lora-Tamayo D’Ocó 2004; Godenau et al. 2015). Official Muslim religious spaces include the two larger Madrid city mosques. However, there are many more mosques and prayer spaces throughout Madrid registered as sociocultural organisations, with concerns that official institutional religious conduits like the CIE do not represent the majority of Madrid’s Muslim demographic; several Muslim communities hold activities and receive funding via sociocultural rather than religious organisations, and operate at the local level alongside civil society (López García et al. 2007). It is posited that as compared to other regions in Spain, Madrid residents may be less resistant to migration on the one hand, or Islam on the other (or a conflation of both), due to a more equal distribution of minorities across several diverse, working class neighbourhoods (Astor 2009). Gómez goes so far as to argue that the diverse Madrid neighbourhood of Lavapies serves as a space within which to understand interculturalism in practice (for example, an interculturalist positive contact zone) (2012). At the same time, some claim poor integration in diverse neighbourhoods and increasing fragmentation in Lavapies (Segado-Vázquez and Espinosa-Muñoz 2015), and organisations like SOS Racism Madrid (and data like those of the previously mentioned OBERAXE survey) signal significant elements of islamophobia in Madrid (Aparicio Gómez 2020; SOS Racismo Madrid 2021).

Madrid Community and City: Interculturalist Language or Agendas in Local Governance

In terms of policy resembling an interculturalist framework, both Madrid Community and City have programming in place that could be interpreted as working towards cohesion via policies of equality and non-discrimination. Funds are allotted to specific neighbourhoods and civil society organisations, including Muslim sociocultural organisations. Depending on the government in office, migrant associations and additional non-governmental organisations have received funding from the region’s public institutions to promote social programmes and community diversity events in the past few decades (Morales Diez de Ulzurrun et al. 2009). Language has either evolved or alternates between that of migrant reception and ‘integration’ to that of diversity and inclusion. As of 2020, the Community of Madrid’s population included 14 per cent foreign nationals, out of the national average at 11.42 per cent (INE 2021). The Community of Madrid has a ‘Community Immigration Plan for 2019–2021,’ as part of its overall ‘Strategy for Social Inclusion in the Community of Madrid 2016–2021,’ which reflects social cohesion policies; (Comunidad de Madrid 2016). It operates Centres for Participation and Integration of Immigrants (CEPI), active for several years, which include programmes like Spanish language classes and ‘know your laws’ (Comunidad de Madrid 2021). However, it does not have a unit for diversity management beyond those for gender equality and persons with physical disability; moreover, the website of Madrid Community’s Observatory against Racism displays no recent activity, listing a non-working telephone contact (Comunidad de Madrid 2022b).

Other non-discrimination initiatives exist but are less active, as changing government composition and political ideologies often affect programming support and funding. In fact, ‘Education for Citizenship,’ a public school teaching model that includes values of interculturalism and diversity, has been proposed and implemented at both national and autonomous community levels over the years and the subject of political debate and controversy, but has met with resistance and is yet to be adopted systematically in Madrid (Gómez Rodríguez and García-Ruiz 2019). However, some cities within the Community of Madrid, like Fuenlabrada and Parla, participate in the Council of Europe’s Intercultural Cities Network (Council of Europe 2021b).

Meanwhile, Madrid City has had two ‘intercultural plans’ from 2005 through 2012, with the term intercultural not employed or actively advocated for by representatives since 2012 (Pardo 2017; Mora Castro 2022). As of 2021 it reportedly was elaborating a third plan, and currently has a governance area of Families, Equality and Social Wellbeing, under which are a directorate for equality policies and anti-gendered violence, as well as a directorate for social inclusion. The former primarily holds programming related to gender and disability, with programmes like ‘Spaces of Equality,’ conducted in each city district (many of which have residents drawing from diverse backgrounds) on a monthly basis, which can include art exhibits, classes, activities and support groups that are meant to foster interaction among neighbours (Ayuntamiento de Madrid 2021). Notably, however, these spaces do not primarily address racism or religious discrimination.

While a municipal legal unit is devoted solely to foreign victims of racism and xenophobia, Madrid City’s Police also has a Unit for Diversity Management, largely supporting victims of hate crimes or discrimination via lodging complaints and providing referrals to NGOs (Policia Municipal de Madrid 2021). It has developed a best practices guide for managing religious diversity, as well (2018). These various initiatives demonstrate attempts at promoting cohesion through contact, as well as anti-discrimination, relevant to the interculturalist approach. However, real headway in these types of initiatives has been cited as difficult due to internal divisions and lack of communication or implementation (Mora Castro 2022). Moreover, indeed, framing diversity in terms of migration and integration can still be prevalent at both the Madrid City, Community and Spanish national level.

Madrid Empirical Study: Methods and Fieldwork

This context frames the empirical study of self-identifying Muslim youth residing in Madrid, analysed below in terms of participants’ experiences of discrimination. It consists of semi-structured, extended qualitative interviews among fourteen self-identified men and fourteen self-identified women (hereinafter referred to as male or female) who described themselves as Muslim, drew from migrant origin, and resided in Madrid City or the Madrid Autonomous Community. The author conducted the research over a two-year period from 2016 until 2018 via snowball sampling. Preceded by a series of pilot interviews, the sample size was reached organically following the principle of saturation (Mason 2010). Interviews consisted of a loose script of questions grouped in thematic sections, inquiring as to self-identification, perceptions of how the individual is identified by other actors, sense of belonging and experiences of discrimination. Interviews were conducted in libraries, mosques, cafés and community centres, with a few arranged via email per participant request, and two interviews administered by a second qualified interviewer. The participant group examined here includes twelve ‘youth’ (ages 16–29 as categorised by the Spanish National Statistics Institute) participants from ages 16–20, eight from ages 21–25 and two from ages 26–29. All participants gave informed consent, and their information has been anonymised according to data minimisation principles.

Seventeen of the participants were students, two young professionals, one in a trade profession and one unemployed. In considering the educational and occupational breakdown of the sample, it may have been skewed in terms of professional and educational attainment; continued youth unemployment in the wake of the Spanish recession was at 34.4 per cent in 2018 at the time of the study (OECD 2021). Regarding their socioeconomic resources, the participants drew from a range of neighbourhoods in the City and Community, and from varying backgrounds. All of the participants quoted here grew up in Madrid.

Self-Identifying Muslim Youth in Madrid: Discrimination Experiences

In semi-structured interviews directed at how they positioned themselves in their communities and how it related to their identity as Muslim, the vast majority of participants perceived various forms of discrimination, including racial, articulating that discrimination was also directed at family, friends or fellow community members.

In understanding the spaces where they met with unequal treatment, discrimination was reported particularly in workplace and educational settings. However, participants indicated other spaces. Institutionally, several participants felt they had been singled out by police, and two noted they particularly ran across discrimination by administrative authorities, with another reporting discrimination at the public hospital. Some reported discrimination in trying to enter night clubs, or that they might be viewed suspiciously, either as potential thieves or terrorists, when using the metro, indicating discrimination based on perceived phenotypical difference.

To begin, despite that the majority of the participants were still in school, they recounted discrimination in the workplace, particularly linked to the Islamic headscarf. This adds a layer of (gender) intersectionality to discrimination Muslim youth confront. Hanaa, 20, noted that ‘Arab’ or ‘Latino’ minorities were more subject to discrimination than other collectives, pointing to how both phenotypical characteristics or visible markers like the veil could factor into discrimination. She explained, ‘In general there is discrimination in Spanish society against any social minority, and more concretely towards migrants or those with Arab or Latin origins. It’s very difficult to obtain a job where you can where your hijab.’ As discussed earlier, the veil can be a visible, symbolic marker of difference inviting negative stereotypes and even behaviours, with some literature pointing to a specifically racialised component in multiple discrimination against those Muslims that wear the headscarf in Europe and Spain (Martín-Godoy 2018; Rodríguez-Reche and Cerchiaro 2023).

Amin, 22 and male, explained, ‘for example my mother … mother was not able to work because she wore the veil, and when it came to the point that we needed her to, she had to go and take it off.’ Warda, 19 and female, recounted how three different friends had also been asked to remove their veil for work. Similarly, participants also provided multiple accounts of discrimination experiences in public school, again sometimes linked to wearing a veil. Ayeh, 20 and female, explained how initially she felt stigmatised due to her headscarf:

I remember when I first began school there was like a rejection, I was the first girl to wear a headscarf in my school. So, there I was, and the first five days no one would talk to me. When they started to get to know me, they said, “how strange, we had an image of Muslims being super closed off and that they were oppressed.” A boy told me, “Wow, how pretty you are, I thought that Muslim girls were very ignorant.” … They have a really, really bad conception and they don’t make the effort to change it.

While Ayeh offered that fellow students had ostracised her, others remarkably noted it was the professors that would discriminate, exposing them to a compound vulnerability in terms of the pedogeological relationship. For example, Ihsan, 20 and female, explained that she had felt discriminated against in high school by both a professor and the school director, but pointed out she did not receive such treatment from fellow students. In light of these accounts, the veil emerges as a symbolic field of contestation that perhaps merits unique, tailored anti-discrimination initiatives. As Morondo points out, focusing on the ‘intersectional subject’ of a Muslim woman discriminated against exclusively due to religious differences sidesteps a more complex understanding of the systemic dimensions of privilege and oppression that have and continue to produce these positions (Morondo Taramundi 2015).

Most notably, during the discussions, participants often downplayed, dismissed or expressed ambivalence towards perceived discrimination, or their own individual encounters with discrimination. For example, one observation made several times included that participants felt as they grew older, their school colleagues would either manifest less discrimination, or become more accepting. Amin, 22 and male, explained that,

When I was young, in school and everything, and I didn’t have Muslim friends … I lived in a place that wasn’t as multicultural, I was ashamed because they said, ‘man, moros, moros you are very closed and everything,’ and they attacked me with that stuff … my friends from university, the second or third day they already knew I was Muslim, and that I prayed my five prayers, and that I couldn’t stay late Fridays, because I had to go to mosque. And there wasn’t a problem. Everyone was very open. I think that age, when you are more of a teenager, when you get older, people are more open.

Similarly, Yusuf, 18 and male, noted, ‘When I was little, they called me a bomber, a terrorist, things like that … when I was little they gave me a hard time in school, but not now. Everyone respects me because we are older, and we behave well.’

Moreover, Yusuf also expanded, ‘I think there are a lot of racists. I think it’s because they are ignorant and there are still lots of protests about this.’ Here, it is notable that participants more often than not cited racism or ignorance as the supposed root of discrimination, rather than prejudice against their religion. Safia, 22 and female, said that while she only felt partially discriminated again by Spanish society, ‘the more terrorist attacks there are, the more discrimination there is,’ indicating she felt it was more racial discrimination and not religious.

In another example, Ibrahim, 22 and male, referred to the term ‘moro’ discussed earlier and also cited by Ayim, as a label with varying and complex meaning depending on the positioning of the individual, but likely to entail racial connotations, alongside postcolonial hierarchies and multiple stereotypes. He explained

There is a very typical idea of Spanish society and that is that the Moroccan or being from the Maghreb even though I’m from Madrid, from Madrid all my life, they see me as “moro.” It’s a concept that we make negative and doesn’t exist in Arabic, or in other languages.

He also recounted how he could be associated with terrorism and theocracies. While describing this, he offered,

You are already accustomed to the fact that many times in your life you will face discrimination … There are lots of levels, but I believe that many of us, well I speak for myself, I believe that to have grown in a society that is racist it’s made us accept many things as normal, many things that later I realise are racist. It has been naturalised in the end.

Furthermore, Ibrahim’s note on the commonplace nature and prevalence of unequal treatment also depicts the reoccurring pattern of downplay and dismissal in interviews, where participants would argue there was little to no discrimination, before referring to a specific instance later in the in the conversation (as in the case of Yusuf above). For example, Iman, 23 and male, reflected that discrimination was always an initial barrier, but that it was surmountable, or gave it little emphasis, ‘In some places I feel discriminated against, it depends on people’s mentality – generally they judge you first, but later when they get to know you they change their mind – initially there is always a little bit of rejection.’ When asked about any discrimination at work, he explained it was not a problem and that he received ‘the typical comments.’ Obadah, 26 and male, similarly argued that once a personal relationship was developed with someone, any previous prejudices could be overcome. Still, he admitted the job market could be difficult for, ‘people with the name Mohammed or women with the veil.’

This dismissiveness of discrimination could be understood from the psychological perspective as self-protection or an attempt to maintain self-esteem, implying minimisation as a type of survival tactic (Taylor et al. 1996). It is important to bear in mind the agency of these individuals in both manifesting forms of resistance and resilience (Bracke 2016). However, such agency might be facilitated by the earlier noted education and employment levels of the participants; the youth interviewed here may be able to negotiate individual capital like socioeconomic resources and education levels when managing any disadvantages of discrimination. Again, the problematic here lies that systemic, inequal power dynamics may be creating an economy of resilience that is occupying the energies of these participants and ultimately co-opting resources and abilities that could be redirected elsewhere.

Regardless of their strategies in the face of such discrimination, these accounts demonstrate that individuals identifying as Spanish Muslim youth frequently experience othering and intersectional discrimination along lines of (real or perceived) origin, race/ethnicity, religion and social class, among other dimensions. The accounts often seemed to indicate this othering was based on visible characteristics – for example, participants were judged before any verbal exchange. In the case of the headscarf, religious or cultural differentiation could have been made upon sight, but in other cases, it was not the visible marker of difference. Meanwhile, the accounts clearly reflect a consistent ‘othering’ of this population, a ‘naturalised’ or societally endemic discrimination based on perceived racial or ethnic and migrant origins, in combination with specific prejudices linked to Islam.

Concluding Discussion

The interculturalist approach calls for educating youth like the participants in this study – and the society that includes or excludes them to varying levels – on the common value of diversity, and to capitalise on diversity as a means to governance. It emphasises the importance of communication and contact between people from different backgrounds (including nationals), and actively implementing policy to this end. In tandem with anti-discrimination efforts, as part of this approach, it must be acknowledged that many individuals, sometimes identified collectively, contend with pervasive, systemic and historic disadvantage, and such policy cannot be imagined or created in a vacuum.

It may be that there are Spanish national mechanisms in place to remedy actors or processes that hinder the contact zones encouraged by the interculturalist approach, including legal, institutional and structural. Critique continues that inequalities can be further addressed, and more safeguards and policies can be installed at the national level. Moreover, evidence of structural disadvantage and experiences of discrimination as offered in the literature and national surveys underlines further layers of (perhaps mutually constitutive) disadvantage and inequalities.

Though continuity and implementation may be inconsistent, Madrid Community and City initiatives and programmes bear some resemblance to the interculturalist agenda in that they encourage diversity and interaction at the microlevel, as well as seek to combat discrimination. However, in the temporality shaping relatively current experiences of Muslim youth in Madrid, the case study demonstrates that individuals continue to experience a unique, layered discrimination. These Muslim youth confront negative stereotyping and ascribed alterity. Many of the participants indicated that discrimination they experienced had either overt or veiled racial and ethnic undertones, and that they were perceived as a cultural or securitisation threat.

Notably, conversations as to discrimination in the case study took the form of dismissing or downplaying such incidences. These individuals’ negotiations in the face of prevalent discriminatory discourses and behaviours reflect their agency and facility or willingness to adapt to unfavourable or damaging circumstances. Such agency and the resources they employ to demonstrate such resilience must also be attributed to a combination of their individual characteristics and circumstances. In short, while participants demonstrated resistance and resilience in confronting current power relations, it does not mean that others contending with myriad intersectional disadvantages – and without the same capital in terms of educational background or socioeconomic resources, for example – will or can engage in the same way with the current climate. Moreover, the question remains as to why such individuals are expected to exercise ‘resilience’ in a systemic cycle of disadvantage constituted by the powers that be (Bracke 2016).

If seeking interculturalist outcomes, interculturalist agendas must not only fight for discursive power in an iterative process, but also must consider the exclusionary outcomes of current policy, built upon historicised frameworks. While the language itself has changed from one of migration and integration and the racialized connotation that entails, the new language, at least for this population, maintains similar exclusion. To date, any diversity initiatives outlined mostly relate to gender and sexuality or ableism. Interculturalist civic education for students has been broached but not systematically or consistently implemented (Ayuntamiento de Madrid 2022; Comunidad de Madrid 2022a). Given the nature of the discriminatory experiences these youth report, race in combination with other dimensions remains prevalent: this is something that remains largely absent or unaddressed in Madrid City and Community interculturalist efforts at inclusion date, which can address religious diversity exclusively, for example – as did past migration or integration programmes. Moreover, practices of ‘resilience’ in the face of discrimination by the individuals in the current study indicate the expectation that the behaviour they have to face with such resilience is expected to continue, which speaks to the past, current and future institutional state of affairs.

Ultimately, the reality of discrimination and disadvantage in contention with interculturalist aspirations remains thorny. Expectations as to interculturalist policy outcomes should be tempered, as by their nature they cannot comprise an all-encompassing approach; this could perhaps explain how interculturalist efforts can be overwhelmed by panoptic, simplistic or non-differentiating approaches of systemic securitisation policies, mindsets and multilevel discourses. Despite Madrid Community and City efforts to date, even as influenced or supported by national policy contexts, intercultural frameworks and anti-discrimination protections remain fragmented and subject to political change and internal disagreement. Going forward, any interculturalist policy programmes should be evaluated to understand who is being included or excluded in its messaging. Current evidence as to the Madrid case confirms that such policies must take into account the reality that disadvantage remains (re-)constituted or resisted in local social spaces marked by nuanced individual agency, which operates within historicised, complex and multilevel institutional frameworks.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).