Centring Black Muslim women in Britain: a Black feminist project

Johnson, Azeezat

doi:10.1080/0966369x.2018.1551785

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…My research with 21 Black Muslim women in Manchester and Sheffield (ages 18–51) arose from the dearth of work about our experiences (Johnson, ). Research on British Muslims focused primarily on Muslims with South Asian heritage (e.g., Brown, ; Phillips, ), while research about Black communities and religion focused on the role of Christianity and Black churches (e.g., Harris, ; Knowles, ).…”

Section: The White Background Of Academiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Throwing our bodies against the white background of academia

Johnson

2019

Area

Self Cite

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Specifically, I examine how to conduct research without representing Black bodies as a fixed, exoticised Other that is oppositional to a disembodied white Self. To do so, I use double consciousness alongside Black feminist work on dialogues as a methodological framework to centre Black Muslim women as knowledge producers. This novel approach moves away from simply describing (and fixing) racialised bodies to a particular performance/experience, and instead explores how performances shift as we negotiate different bodies, objects, and spaces. The paper advances discussions in critical race studies and the ethics of geographical research by illustrating how the situated experiences of the researcher and the participant are embedded in processes of knowledge production: I look to subvert the fixing of racialised bodies as deviations from the normative white background of academia. K E Y W O R D SBlack feminism, dialogue, double consciousness, normative whiteness, race and higher education, research ethics 1 | THE WHITE BACKGROUND OF ACADEMIA I feel most coloured when I am thrown against a sharp white background. … Among the thousand white persons, I am a dark rock surged upon, and overswept, but through it all, I remain myself. (Hurston, 2000, p. 96) I've often thought about the above quote by Zora Neale Hurston in relation to how knowledge is produced within academic institutions: her words expose an ethical quandary with developing research about persons racialised as non-white against the "sharp white background" of academia.This paper responds to my ethical concerns with conducting research about racialised minorities within academic institutions that perpetuate normative whiteness. In doing so, the rest of this introduction outlines the "sharp white background" that I struggled with through my work on the clothing practices of Black Muslim women in Britain. Second, I examine how the racialised Other has been constructed as oppositional to whiteness. Following this, I extend work on double consciousness and dialogue by bringing these concepts together and using them as methodological tools to explore the relationship that Black Muslim women have to this (white) Self/(black) Other binary.My research with 21 Black Muslim women in Manchester and Sheffield (ages 18-51) arose from the dearth of work about our experiences (Johnson, 2019). Research on British Muslims focused primarily on Muslims with South Asian heritage (e.g., Brown, 2006;Phillips, 2015), while research about Black communities and religion focused on the role of Christianity and Black churches (e.g., Harris, 2006;Knowles, 2012). By centring Black Muslim women, I focused on how ---

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Section: The White Background Of Academiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Throwing our bodies against the white background of academia

Johnson

2019

Area

Self Cite

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“…My hair started falling out. I had bald patches.’ As explained through embodied intersectionality, in being positioned as a strange body, feeling secure is negotiated through Fadumo’s attempt to use boundaries around her appearance by relaxing her hair, albeit damaging, in order to restrict her hypervisibility as a Black woman in settings where she is minoritised (Johnson, 2018).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For BMW, identity is complex due to the numerous positions community members can hold (Johnson, 2018). In the UK, the label of ‘British Muslims’ has tacitly become associated with ethnicity, particularly Muslims of South Asian descent (e.g.…”

Section: The Hidden History Of Black Muslim Womenmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Identifying a space for young Black Muslim women in contemporary Britain

Nurein

Iqbal

2021

Ethnicities

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Young Black Muslim Women (BMW) have complex, intersectional identities and exist at the margins of various identity groupings. Given this, members of the community can face societal relegation across, not only race and gender lines, but across religious ones, too. This paper explores the lived experiences of intragroup discrimination, identity and belonging in 11 young Black Muslim Women in the United Kingdom. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants and thematically analysed through the lens of intersectionality. The use of an intersectional framework facilitated an understanding of the manner in which the sample was multiply marginalised. Two key themes emerged from the interviews: firstly, around experiences of intragroup and intersectional discrimination and, secondly, around the challenges of responding to and coping with the negative effects of such discrimination. Participants discussed the cross-cutting nature through which they faced discrimination: from within the Black community; from within the Muslim community; and as a result of their gender. The non-exclusivity of these three identities result in constant encounters of discrimination along different dimensions to their personal identity. They also developed diverse means of coping with this marginalisation including drawing from religious beliefs and mobile identifications, i.e. performing different aspects of their identities in different contexts. The present study contributes to existing knowledge in its focus on an under-researched group and emphasises the negative effects of intragroup discrimination. The paper importantly highlights the diversity within the Black community and considers the (in)visibility of Black Muslim Women within society.

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“…Geographers have long been attentive to the problem of patriarchal oppression and its reproduction. Several studies, whether explicitly or implicitly influenced by black feminist scholarship, have employed an intersectional approach to demonstrate patriarchy’s entanglement with the promotion of racist‐capitalist inequitable relations (Daley, 2020; Johnson, 2019; Kobayashi & Peake, 1994; Rose, 1990). This work has been complemented by scholarship highlighting the need to recognise patriarchy's empirical complexity and institutional variations both spatially and temporally (Duncan, 1994; Hopkins, 2006; Jackson, 1991; Smith, 1990).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Boys are tired! Youth, urban struggles, and retaliatory patriarchy

Amankwaa

Mensah

2020

Trans Inst British Geog

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Influenced by theoretical orientations in urban studies, which demonstrate how music offers a way to explore social dynamics in Africa, we examine the thoughts, actions, and experiences of male youth in Ghana using Guru's popular song “Boys abrƐ [Boys are tired].” Through doing so, we identify a set of troubling gender relations unfolding in Accra that are conceptualised as “retaliatory patriarchy” which has three constituent elements: entitlement, resentment, and obliviousness.

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Centring Black Muslim women in Britain: a Black feminist project

Cited by 6 publications

References 20 publications

Throwing our bodies against the white background of academia

Throwing our bodies against the white background of academia

Identifying a space for young Black Muslim women in contemporary Britain

Boys are tired! Youth, urban struggles, and retaliatory patriarchy

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