Racial and ethnic differences in perceptions of discrimination among Muslim Americans

I use data from the 2011 Pew Survey (N?=?1,033) to examine the prevalence and correlates of perceived discrimination across Muslim American racial/ethnic groups. Asian Muslims report the lowest frequency of perceived discrimination than other Muslim racial/ethnic groups. Nearly, all Muslim racial/ethnic groups have a few times higher odds of reporting one or more types of perceived discrimination than white Muslims. After controlling for socio-demographic characteristics, the observed relationships persist for Hispanic Muslims but disappear for black and other/mixed race Muslims. Women are less likely than men to report several forms of discrimination. Older Muslims report lower rates of perceived discrimination than younger Muslims. White Muslim men are more likely to report experiencing discrimination than white, black and Asian Muslim women. The findings highlight varying degrees of perceived discrimination among Muslim American racial/ethnic groups and suggest examining negative implications for Muslims who are at the greatest risk of mistreatment.     

Homegrown foreigners: how Christian nationalism and nativist attitudes impact Muslim civil liberties

Building from the literature on racialization of Muslims, we argue that there are two unique dimensions to anti-Muslim attitudes: Christian nationalism and nativism. Christian nationalism subscribes to the idea of Christianity as being central to American identity, and nativism provides insight into the monopolies regulating citizenship. We then test this framework’s hypotheses on data drawn from the General Social Survey in 2014 to see if these two dimensions predict support for civil rights infringements of Muslim-Americans compared to other outgroups, including atheists, communists, and racists. The results indicate both Christian nationalism and nativism have significant and negative effects on Muslim civil liberties. We also find some differences between the effects of Christian nationalism and nativism on Muslim civil liberties compared to the other outgroups. We interpret these results as an indication that nativism works as an ordering principle to reconstitute who counts as American and who does not.     

Becoming American by becoming Muslim: strategic assimilation among second-generation Muslim American parents

ABSTRACT

Strategic assimilation describes how individuals use boundary work to construct identities which allow them to selectively maintain ties to a minority community while assimilating into the mainstream. However, scholarship that accounts for the role that minority religious identity plays in these processes is warranted. The current study fills a theoretical and empirical niche by exploring boundary work among not only racial, but religious minorities in their processes of identity construction and assimilation. Based on two years of ethnographic fieldwork as well as 72 in-depth interviews with Muslim Americans in Metro-Detroit, I demonstrate how upper-middle-class suburban second-generation parents actively deconstructed class, racial, and ethnic boundaries to construct boundaries around religious identity and generational identity. In so doing, they consciously crafted a de-ethnicized interpretation of Islam and hence a Muslim American identity that they saw as integral in promoting upward assimilation for themselves and their third-generation children.     

Support for Kurdish language rights in Turkey: the roles of ethnic group,group identifications,contact, and intergroup perceptions

The question of Kurdish language rights has been a central issue in the Turkish–Kurdish conflict. The current study examined endorsement of Kurdish language rights in relation to intergroup factors (i.e. group identifications, cross-group friendships, perceived discrimination, and perceived out-group beliefs about state unity) among self-identified Turkish and Kurdish participants. The results indicate that Turks were much less in favour of these rights than the Kurds. In addition, for the Turks, higher national and ethnic identification were associated with lower support for Kurdish language rights, while cross-group friendship, perceived discrimination of Kurds and the belief that Kurds endorse national unity were associated with more support for rights. For the Kurdish participants, stronger national identification seems to undermine the mobilizing meaning that Kurdish group identification has for language rights support. Furthermore, friendship with Turks can undermine the support for rights because it strengthens national identification and reduces ethnic identification.     

Secular citizenship and Muslim belonging in Turkey: migrant perspectives

In recent years, academic critique has worked toward exposing the underlying ethno-religious biases in official formulations of secular citizenship in Turkey. While such studies have highlighted the contradictions and inconsistencies that emerge in these grand narratives of national belonging, they have tended to privilege statist determinants of the bounds of nationhood. In this article, I offer an intervention into this discussion by exploring how citizens themselves encounter and embrace religion as a marker of national belonging in Turkey. In particular, I discuss the case of the 1950s Bosniak migration to Turkey and explore the salience of the migratory journey in informing their experiences of secular citizenship and national belonging.     

Religion,ethnicity and politics: Hindu and Muslim Indian immigrants in the United States

This article focuses on the political struggles between Hindu and Muslim Indian immigrant groups in the United States over the definition of "Indianness". Hindu Indian American organizations define India as a Hindu society and are strong supporters of the Hindu nationalist movement in India. Muslim Indian American organizations, on the other hand, view India as a multi-religious and multicultural society. They are striving to safeguard India's secularism and towards this end, have entered into coalitional relationships with lower caste groups. Both types of organizations are working to influence American and Indian politics in line with their respective interests, leading to an exacerbation of the conflict between the two immigrant groups. This article examines the reasons for this development and its implications, both for the development of an Indian American community in the United States and for religion and politics in India.     

Being Muslim and being Irish after 9/11: self-conceptions of place in Irish society

There has been a significant, well-established if somewhat invisible Muslim population in Ireland since the 1950s. An increase in immigration during the Celtic tiger years along with the hysteria of 9/11 caused a rapid visibilization of this population. Muslims became synonymous with extremism and terrorism, but also fell victim to racist constructions emerging from the economic decline. The experience of Muslim youth since 9/11 has been well researched in the UK and Europe, however there has been little empirical work conducted with Ireland’s Muslim communities. In the literature, it is assumed that the British experience is replicated for Muslim youth in Ireland – this is not the case. This paper examines the lived experience of Irish Muslim youth given the visibilization of Islam after 9/11 and their ensuing experiences of Irishness. An analysis of ethnographic data reveals the idiosyncratic experiences of these youth growing up in the shadow of a discriminatory and Islamophobic narrative on extremism and terrorism and an evolving immigrant landscape.     

Islamic gatherings: experiences of discrimination and religious affirmation across established and new immigrant communities

To what extent are perceptions of discrimination associated with religious affirmation among Muslim minorities in the Netherlands? Drawing on recent nationally representative surveys among self-identified Muslims from five ethnic groups in the Netherlands, we test boundary conditions of reactive religiosity. Our findings indicate that for Muslims from established immigrant groups, perceptions of discrimination are associated with more frequent religious attendance, but that this is not the case for Muslims from smaller, less established ethnic communities. Findings are interpreted using a boundary framework.     

Unheard voices: state-making and popular participation in post-Ottoman Iraq

I explore the nature of the particular nation state form that came into being in Iraq during the British Mandate, and in particular its impact on minorities. The Mandate government, and the broader international legal framework, structured state–minority relations in post-Ottoman Iraq in ways that continue to shape Iraqi politics. While sociocultural differences in Iraqi society were given constitutional recognition, this did not lead to the effective protection of minority rights, primarily because the principle of popular participation was not respected. The Mandate legacy in Iraq has been long-lasting, as the mistakes of the past have been reproduced by postcolonial regimes, and thus the state–minority relationship has been locked in a loop of exclusionary politics and securitization.     

State mutability and ethnic civil society: the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel

This article identifies the phenomenon of ethnic civil society activism as mobilization that seeks to empower an ethnic community and challenges the institutional order. The case of the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel is discussed and is used to reveal the conditions under which disaffected minorities pursue the path of ethnic civil society. The study finds that an analytical framework that stresses the mutability of state structures and changes in broader state-society relations provides a better explanation than existing theories of ethnic conflict. State-society characteristics conducive to this type of mobilization are a well-institutionalized state that can prevent deviation from the state's foundational rules and a counterbalanced dispersion of authority that limits regime capacity to control society.     

Knowing,understanding and practising democratic citizenship: an investigation of the role of religion among Muslim,Christian and non-religious adolescents

The aim of this study is to examine the relation between religiosity and civic competences required to practise democratic citizenship. We compare non-religious, Christian and Muslim adolescents in the Netherlands to see whether (a) there is a relation between religion and civic competences, and (b) whether this differs depending on religious denomination. In the public debate, the reconcilability of Islamic beliefs and democratic citizenship is often questioned, but the relation between the two lacks empirical support. Results from analyses on data of 364 adolescents in the Netherlands indicate that religious adolescents have more developed democratic competences than non-religious adolescents. This is the case both for Christian and Muslim adolescents. The strength of religiosity does not play a role in predicting civic competences. Importantly, no differences are found between the civic competences of Muslim and Christian youth.     

Minority statuses and positive views of the country in the United States: an investigation of nativity/immigrant status,and racial/ethnic and religious backgrounds

Using a nationally representative sample of adults in the US, this study examines the majority and minority’s positive views of the country in terms of nativity status, race and ethnicity, and religion. The results suggest that the majority–minority differences vary by demographic characteristics and attitudes examined. Although non-US citizens have a lower level of regard for the US as the best country in which to be a citizen than their counterparts, they have no less favourable views in other respects. Among ethnic minorities, only blacks have more negative views of the US than whites do. While religious minorities also have less regard for the country than the majority, individuals with no religious affiliation hold lower levels of most national attitudes. These findings suggest that the associations between minority status and views of the country go beyond race and ethnicity, which previous research has overlooked.     

Emotions of the weak: violence and ethnic boundaries among Coptic Christians in Egypt

This article offers a theoretical framework to understand Muslim–Christian relations in contemporary Egypt. I argue that the interdependence of power relations, emotions, and symbolic boundaries are the key to understanding minority emotions as a political product and a boundary marker. Particular emotions of Christian minorities invoked during interactions and non-interactions with Muslim neighbours reveal the distance between the two groups, while cultivating cohesion among Christians. Data collected from participant observation in public spaces of a religiously tolerant neighbourhood in Cairo and in-depth interviews with 27 Coptic Christians show that indirect violence and daily microaggressions, triggered by the power disparity, unfold internalized fear and ‘righteous indignation’, negative feelings including anger and irritation against unjust treatment. Findings also discuss Coptic strategies to dismiss negative emotions. The interdependent framework, which has been largely understudied, expands our scope of understanding how power relates to minority emotions and symbolic boundaries between ethnic and religious groups.     

Host-country patriotism among European immigrants: a comparative study of its individual and societal roots

While research has traditionally focused on first- and second-generation immigrants' socio-economic incorporation and to a lesser extent on their cultural and political integration, we analyse their affective attachment to the host country. Specifically, we assess: (1) the extent to which immigrants appear more or less ‘patriotic’ than non-immigrants; (2) what individual-level characteristics lead immigrants to greater (or lesser) attachment and; (3) whether cross-national differences in affective feelings towards the host country can be explained by relevant contextual characteristics. Analysing the 2008 wave of the European Values Study, we arrive at the conclusion that immigrants are not disaffected in terms of national pride, and that their own attachment is largely a function of the community in which they find themselves.     

Balancing stigma and status: racial and class identities among middle-class Haitian youth

This article examines the identity formation of middle-class Haitian youth. Segmented assimilation theory predicts that the Haitian second generation will integrate into the black American underclass or maintain strong ethnic group identities. The black middle class, however, is an unexplored pathway of cultural assimilation. This paper uses the literature on the racial and class experiences of the black American middle class as a departure point for understanding the boundary work of middle-class Haitian youth. Based on qualitative interviews and a focus group, we uncover the mechanisms of identity formation for this invisible population. Racial, ethnic and class boundaries compel Haitian youths to create strategies of either empowerment or distancing. They negotiate between their middle-class status and ethnoracial exclusion in a racially segregated neighbourhood, an ethnically homogenous church and a mixed-race school setting. This study's findings extend our theoretical understandings of middle-class immigrants and their identity work.     

Linkage relationships among 20 genetic markers in cattle. Evidence for linkage between two pairs of blood group systems: B-Z and S-F/V respectively

Five bovine paternal half-sib pedigrees for a total of 527 individuals were typed for six blood group systems: A, B, F/V, L, S, Z; for nine biochemical polymorphisms: ADA, MPI, PGM-3(slow), NP, Gc, Pi2, Tf, Ptf1 and Ptf2; and for restriction fragment length polymorphisms at five autosomal loci: Tg, GH, LDLr, BoLA-DQ and BoLA-DY. Two of the pedigrees were informative for segregation at the 'muscular hypertrophy' locus, and one was informative at the coat colour determining 'roan' locus. Linkage analysis was performed between all markers. Linkage was demonstrated between the S and F/V blood group systems (z = 3.11), adding one locus to the previously identified linkage group VII (LGVII) [Pi-2 and S], the most likely order being Pi2-S-F/V with maximum likelihood recombination rates of 0.208 and 0.211. Also shown to be linked were the blood group systems B and Z (z = 5.7, theta = 0.245). We confirmed the observation previously made by Andersson et al. (1988) of a high recombination rate between class II genes DQ and DY, suggesting either a larger physical distance between those genes than expected from comparative data, or the presence of a 'recombinational hotspot' in the bovine major histocompatibility complex. No linkage was found either with the 'muscular hypertrophy' locus, or with the 'roan' locus. However, these two loci could be excluded from respectively 1.7 and 2.5 Morgans of the bovine genome.