Archives

  • Muslim Place(s) & Community Experiences in Canada
    Vol. 2 No. 1 (2024)

    The concept of community identity within the social sciences and humanities has been understood in a variety of ways. While some authors argue that there are no clear means of measuring a sense of community identity, especially for comparative analysis (Puddifoot 1995), and others have proposed foundations for the development of community identity, especially through shared discursive construction (Colombo & Senatore 2004), still others prefer to examine how social identities function.(Stets and Burke 2000) They do this with particular attention to the enhancement of individual and group well-being through social support and both collective efficacy and action. (McNamara et al 2013) 

    Further, the concept of identity is highly situated, making space/place(s) highly relevant for discussions of Muslim community experiences. In “Wisdom Sits on Places” from Senses of Place, Keith H. Basso argues that “the self-conscious experience of place is inevitably a product and expression of the self whose experience it is, and therefore, unavoidably, the nature of that experience is shaped at every turn by the…social biography of the one who sustains it.” As Basso also states, “places [thus] come to generate their own fields of meaning… [by being] animated by the thoughts and feelings of persons who attend to them.” To a large extent, this experience can be shared to varying degrees by individuals who perceive themselves to be part of the same groupings or communities, especially when those collectives are subordinate or liminal to dominant cultural groups.

    Within traditional Islamic discourses, there is not necessarily a term for group identity as it would be understood in a western sense today; rather, Islamic concepts of collective identity can be understood in (but not limited to) the terms of Ummah (or the global community of Muslims connected by belief, law and practice) and fard kifayah, or community responsibility and duty. (Wahb 2021). In fact, it could be argued that the entire normative Islamic worldview and ethos is one of holistic communality in a way that it is challenging for more individualized ideologies and societies to conceptualize. Ultimately, the social aspect of this requires that we parse community identity and experiences according to the places in which they occur and which they give life to/are given life by. The spirit of community in many Muslim locales and globally, however, has been shaken and even fragmented by forces of colonialism, neo-liberalism and others such that a sense of community identity and experience is, at best, muted and, at worst, absent. This process, of course, is neither consistent, nor linear and can fluctuate while being dependent on a range of factors including time, place, relationships, and so forth. 

    This issue covers some of the following topics:

    • public space, 
    • community space, 
    • religious/sacred space, and 
    • domestic space, 
    • questions of belonging and “ the stranger” in Islam, specifically in relation to kinship in the midst of dis/placement and/or dis/citizenship,
    • local, regional, national, and global community identity, experiences and discussions,
    • as well as examinations of how group and individual identity interact. 

    Insights from a broad spectrum of areas have been welcomed including philosophy, digital humanities & media studies, history, anthropology, sociology, psychology, literature, and others. 

  • Muslims and Mulitculturalism in Canada
    Vol. 1 No. 1 (2022)

    In Canada, 2021 marked the 50th anniversary of the adoption of multiculturalism as a federal policy. Multiculturalism is often upheld as the pinnacle of Canadian culture and social achievement, and, in public education systems across the country, is celebrated as a primary point of difference between Canadian “mosaic” and American “melting pot” culture. Proponents of it argue that it encompasses “a range of notions of heritage, cultural diversity, recreation and entertainment activities, cultural centres, and as an entire way of life with fundamental institutional structures.”

    Despite these performative public discourses about multiculturalism, which have been disseminated through public education and media in Canadian society since the policy’s adoption and development, multiculturalism has rightfully been understood (and critiqued) as an ideology - a set of “ill-founded beliefs which are often uncritically held by those whose interests are furthered by” them. The foundational presuppositions of multiculturalism ideology about major human concepts such as culture, cultural interaction, acculturation, difference, and power dynamics are often accepted in an unreflexive manner by those who uphold and accept its myths about itself - a similar or identical process seen in adherents of secularism and a connection that will be elaborated on  this issue.

    Fittingly, those on the periphery of both multiculturalism as a project and secular ways of being and building societies, are among the first to offer critiques of them - those for whom the assumptions of these projects cannot be readily accepted as commonsensical, modern or progressive.

    The diversity of the four articles in this volume demonstrates the myriad of ways in which multiculturalism informs and impacts Muslim life and ways of being in Canada. As a deeply fraught, yet central tenet of Canadian national narratives, multiculturalism requires close and critical attention from many vantage points. Muslim perspectives on multiculturalism are particularly telling, as Islam and Muslims so frequently find themselves at the margins or fractures of multiculturalism - sometimes with deeply harmful consequences. Yet it is not always so dire. As some of our authors demonstrate, Muslim ways of interacting with, participating in and resisting multiculturalism also show a way forward towards a more truly pluralistic society.