sempozyum_bildiri_kitabi

CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN US: A VISUAL NARRATIVE STUDY WITH
FEMALE MUSLİM LONDONERS
Souzan MANSOUR *
The last decade has seen a steep rise in political discussions surrounding Muslims of all types of
ethnicities. From terrorism allegations, to human rights condemnations, some Muslim women have
been at the forefront of bearing the responsibilities of both positive and negative discussions, mainly
due to their outward appearances of “looking” Muslim. While the topics have varied, the discussions
have been mainly at and about Muslim women, as opposed to direct interaction with and between
them. This study hopes to address this particular social issue.
The two topics at play in this study are the lives of Muslim women in the West and alternative
representations of the everyday. These two specific arenas are not often brought together into a
documentation and analysis of the everyday, especially not using a visual narrative method. The
main research question of the study is: How do young Muslim women living in London understand
and visually represent their everyday challenges?
Background
Based on Gallup’s World Poll in which, between 2001‐2007, where Gallup conducted tens of
thousands of hour‐long, face‐to‐face interviews with residents of more than 35 nations that are
predominantly Muslim or have substantial Muslim populations, scholars John Esposito and Dalia
Mogahed explain, “The vital missing piece among the many voices weighing in on this question is the
actual views of everyday Muslims” (2007). In the ongoing discourse of integration versus assimilation
when discussing what are deemed to be minority or ethnic groups, there has emerged a push
towards a stronger discussion of integralization, the process of enabling citizens to feel integral to
their societies. Writing on European Muslims, H.A. Hellyer explains that they “Will follow a pattern
that other Muslim communities have followed in the past: ceasing to be simply discordant voices
amongst other disparate communities, but rather, communities integral to those societies, unwilling
and unable to be identified as ‘minorities’” (Hellyer, 2007).
To narrow down the scope further, Peter Hopkins synthesizes the main trends within geographical
research about contemporary Islam and identifies that a significant issue is rarely discussed within
the geographies of religion: the ways in which the positionalities of the researcher and the
researched potentially determines, shapes or transforms the research process (2009). Clearly, the
gendered, classed, racialized and religious background, identities and practices of the researcher and
the particular Islamic and other social identities of the research participants may determine the
nature of the research encounter, the detail of the data collected and the overall outcomes of the
research (Hopkins, 2009).
As a study on the lives of Muslim women, the study will generate a larger understanding of the
everyday life experiences of the participants without finding the need to categorize their identities
within common stereotypes. This has the capacity to foster understanding and dialogue, and give
voice to potentially marginalized communities by sharing their stories. Additionally, the positionality
of the researcher as a young Muslim woman recently living in London will be explored for
methodological concerns and practices.
Research design and methodology
Research Design
The data collected for this study was conducted in two parts. First, a photo taking method was
elicited from the participants, after which semi structured narrative interviews were conducted. In
total, there are 7 cases with 7 interviews and 182 photographs. The participants were all between
the ages of 18 and 35 years who self identified as Muslim women and who have been living in
London for at least two years. In essence, there are three main components to this study: an
elicitation of visual representations of the everyday, combined with a semi structured interviewing
method, to conduct a narrative study.
*
MSc Social Research Methods, London School of Economics 2013.