IDENTITY AND THE POLITICS OF REPRESENTATION: THE CASE OF MUSLIM YOUTH IN BRADFORD Syed Muhammad Atif Imtiaz Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Social Psychology London School of Economics and Political Science University of London 1 ABSTRACT What are the dialectics of the endogenisation of ‘otherness’? This thesis is a study into the interaction between social representations, identities and power in relation to South Asian, Muslim, male youth in Bradford (UK) within the historical context of the ‘Rushdie affair’. The methodology is structured in order to investigate alternative locations of the identity-representation interaction. The studies include participant observation followed by 18 interviews with ‘specialists’, a rhetorical analysis of five television programmes that were aired on national television during and on the Rushdie affair, and an examination of the manner of reception of one of these programmes through 8 focus group discussions. The findings are that ‘otherness’ and difference are central to notions of identity for South Asian Muslim male youth, as they are surrounded by representations of themselves as ‘Muslim’ and ‘Paki’. Their identities take the form of three ideal-types – ‘coconuts’, ‘rude boys’ and ‘extremists’ – which rhetorically engage differentially with the representations. The Rushdie affair is interpreted firstly as a moment of subaltern contestation of its representation through ‘identity politics’ discourse, and secondly, dialogically as both rhetorical positions (hegemonic and subaltern) attempt to psychologically distance themselves from each other – through the construction of the ‘Bradford Muslim’ on the hegemonic side. However, both positions shared techniques of rhetoric, types of discourse, and a common narrative. Furthermore, ‘identity politics’ discourse (for two of the ideal-type identities) acted as the interpretative prism through which the reception of the programme made sense in relation to, for example, the content and manner of reception, the reception of representatives and the call for strategic essentialism. The thesis shows that attempts to escape negative evaluation result in the incorporation of representations, discourses and rhetorical techniques that position identities firmly within the hermeneutics of the hegemonic discourse. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 PART I THEORY 1.0. THE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF MUSLIM IDENTITY: A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 1.1. Representations of a local community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 1.1.1. The government and a local community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 1.1.2. A variety of stereotypes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 1.1.3. A forced form of labelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 1.2. The development of Muslim identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 1.2.1. Between two cultures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 1.2.2. Explaining Muslim identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 1.2.2.1. Responses as strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 1.2.3. Global and historical dimensions of identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 1.3. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 2.0. THE DIALECTICS OF SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS AND SOCIAL IDENTITIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 2.1. The sociological turn in social psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 2.1.1. The theory of social representations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 2.2. The interdependence of social representations and social identity . . 43 2.2.1. Social representations, social identity and positioning theory . . . . . 45 2.2.2. Representational subjugation and forms of contestation . . . . . . . . . 50 2.2.3. The social psychology of identity politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 2.3. The public sphere and the identity-representation dialectic . . . . . . . 56 2.3.1. The media as a site of contestation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 2.4. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 3 PART II METHODOLOGY 3.0. THE BRADFORD MUSLIM COMMUNITY AND THE ‘RUSHDIE AFFAIR’ – A CASE STUDY . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 3.1. Muslims in Britain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 3.1.1. The history of Muslims in Britain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 3.1.2. Three Muslim communities pre-mass migration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 3.1.2.1. The zawiyas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 3.1.2.2. The Liverpool mosque and the Muslim institute . . . 66 3.1.2.3. The Woking Muslim mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 3.1.3. Post-war mass migration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 3.1.3.1. The influence of Islamic debates in South Asia on the Muslim community in Britain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 3.2. The Muslim community in Bradford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 3.2.1. Institution-building for a local community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 3.2.2. Episodes in the political history of the Bradford Muslim community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 3.3. The ‘Rushdie affair’ and Muslims in Britain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 3.3.1. Coverage of the ‘Rushdie affair’ in the media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 3.3.2. A summary of an analysis of the print media’s coverage of the ‘Rushdie affair’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 3.4. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 4.0. PHILOSOPHY AND METHODS OF RESEARCH . . . . . . . . . 83 4.1. Methodology for a sociological form of social psychology . . . . . . 83 4.1.1. Studying the community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 4.1.1.1. Participating in the Muslim community . . . . . . . . . 89 4.1.1.2. Topic guide and analytical framework . . . . . . . . . . 90 4.1.1.3. Interviewing the specialists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 4.1.2. Studying the electronic media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 4.1.3. Studying the responses to the media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 4.2. Insider research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 4.2.1. Access and knowing the language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 4.2.2. Distorting effects of the act of observation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 4.2.3. Participant observation and insider research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 4.2.4. Insider research and bias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 4.2.5. Hegelian and Cartesian perspectives on the insider and outsider debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 4 4.2.6. Race, culture and religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 4.2.7. Limitations to insider research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 4.2.8. Ethics in social research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 4.2.9. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 4.3. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 PART III RESULTS AND ANALYSIS 5.0. REPRESENTATIONS, IDENTITIES AND DISCOURSE AMONGST BRADFORD MUSLIM YOUTH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 5.1. Social representations of identities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 5.1.1. Social representations of the ‘Paki’ and the ‘Muslim’ . . . . . . . . . . . 115 5.1.2. Social representations of ‘white society’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 5.2. Identities as responses to stereotypes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 5.2.1. The ‘coconuts’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 5.2.2. The ‘rude boys’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 5.2.3. The ‘extremists’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 5.2.4. Identities as ideal types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 5.3. The emergence of Muslim identity discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 5.3.1. Religion as the basis of rights discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 5.3.2. The ‘Bradford Muslim’: The social construction of radical Islam . . 141 5.4. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 6.0. DIALOGICAL ARGUMENTATION DURING THE ‘RUSHDIE AFFAIR’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 6.1. The identification of rhetorical positions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 6.1.1. The liberal rhetorical position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 6.1.2. The Muslim rhetorical position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 6.2. Rhetorical positioning and social representations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .160 6.2.1. The liberal position and social representations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 6.2.2. The Muslim position and social representations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 6.3. Levels of rhetorical functioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 6.4. Individualism as ideology and identity politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 6.5. Common argumentative techniques across rhetorical positions . . . 168 5 6.6. A common narrative across rhetorical positions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 6.7. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 7.0. DECODING REPRESENTATIONS OF THE BRADFORD MUSLIM COMMUNITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .179 7.1. Oppositional decodings of hegemonic representations . . . . . . . . . . .179 7.1.1. The media as site for assertion of hegemony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 7.1.2. Presenter as agent for assertion of hegemony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 7.2. Representation and its discontents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 7.2.1. Choice of quote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 7.2.2. Choice of topic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 7.2.2.1. A confirmatory manner of decoding . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 7.2.3. Choice of representative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 7.2.3.1. Projection of the identity position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 7.2.3.2. The difficulty of strategic essentialism . . . . . . . . . . . 195 7.2.3.3. The internalisation of hegemonic discourse . . . . . . . 196 7.3. The ambivalent decoding of stereotypes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 7.3.1. Invalidity of stereotypes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 7.3.2. Validity of stereotypes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 7.3.3. Universality of stereotypes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 7.4. The contestation of representation as a political act . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202 7.5. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 8.0. CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 8.1. Methodological reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 8.2. Social representations and identities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 8.3. When the subaltern met the hegemonic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 8.4. The social psychology of identity politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 8.5. Theoretical contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 6 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254 Appendix (i): Interview schedule for key informers . . . . . . . . . . . 254 Appendix (ii): Photographs of buildings in Bradford used for interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 Appendix (iii): Table describing interviewees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258 Appendix (iv): Schedule for focus group discussions on The Late Show – A Visit to Bradford . . . . . . . . . . 259 Appendix (v): A chronology of the ‘Rushdie affair’ (1st July 1988 – 31st Dec 1990) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260 Appendix (vi): A list of all the programmes shown on television concerning Islam and/or Muslims between 1st July 1988 & 31st Dec 1990 . . . . . . . . . . 264 Appendix (vii): A transcript of the television programme The Late Show – A Visit to Bradford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 Appendix (viii): A summary of the five programmes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288 7 Tables and Figures Table 2.1. Types of positioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Table 3.1. Breakdown of Muslim community according to country of origin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Figure 4.1. Sites of study for media analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Table 4.1. Television programmes used for rhetorical analysis 95 Table 4.2. Description of focus groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Figure 5.1. Distribution of ideal types as potential identity positions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 Table 6.1. Rhetorical positioning on issues relating to the ‘Rushdie affair’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 Table 6.2. Frequency of rhetorical items per identity position . 150 Table 6.3. Frequency of extreme rhetorical position statements 151 Table 6.4. Frequency of items of rhetoric according to type . . . 164 Table 7.1. Frequency of appearance of Muslim representatives 189 Table 7.2. Relationship between representatives and characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 Table 7.3. Variety of opinions on stereotypes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 Table 8.1. Identity-representation relation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I wish to thank my parents who taught me the importance of education, good manners and compassion. This thesis would not have been possible without their support. I also wish to thank my wife, Fatima and my two sisters, Subia and Maria, for the innumerable times when they have helped with the more tedious aspects of research and investigation. I wish to acknowledge my profound sense of gratitude to Professor Robert Farr with whom I began this thesis for his encouragement, learning and tolerance. I learnt from him that scholarship and humanity can indeed be characteristics of the one individual. I also wish to acknowledge my gratitude to Marie-Claude Gervais. I have gained immensely from her suggestions and her thoroughness, especially the attention to detail and coherence, both forms of criticism which have been crucial for this thesis. I wish to thank the many members of the department of social psychology, with whom I have shared a discussion or two, but especially Caroline Howarth. I have benefited from her work and advice. I would also like to express my gratitude to Bradley Franks for his patient help and support. Finally, I wish to thank all those who agreed to take part in the discussions and interviews. I am grateful to all of them. I hope that this thesis will take us one step further in dealing with some of the problematic issues arising out of representation. 9 INTRODUCTION This thesis investigates the interplay between social representations and identity in a South Asian, Muslim community in Bradford, United Kingdom. The study of difference has been a regular theme in social representations studies as exemplified by Marková and Farr (1995) in their study on disability, and Jodelet (1991) in her study on madness. This study continues this theme on the social representations of difference by studying the social representations of Muslims in Bradford and their interaction with identity processes for Bradford Muslim youth. Is Islam ‘other’? Said (1978/1995) would suggest that Islam was made ‘other’ through the practice of British and French orientalism for the purposes of empire. This view has been criticised for its leanings towards essentialism (Turner, 1994; MacKenzie, 1995). And indeed, it would be difficult to employ such abstractions in order to explain a relationship that has lasted for over a thousand years, across several continents. Nevertheless, there have been ‘moments’ in the history of this relationship when such a ‘self-other’ bifurcation has made sense. Watt (1991) has summarised twelfth and thirteenth century Christian views of Islam as, for example, being spread by violence and, the converse of this, that Christianity is the religion of peace, and that Islam is a religion of self-indulgence, especially in sexual matters. Said (1978/1995) provides the example of Cromer who juxtaposed the rational, logical, evidence-requiring European to the irrational, self-contradictory and lacking in lucidity Oriental. Grosrichard (1998) has examined through Lacanian analysis the interpretation of the Ottoman Caliphate as despotic by Montesquieu in contradiction to the emerging (European) rational society through, for example, depictions of the harem and the seraglio. To continue this theme, Turner (1994) concludes after examining Weber’s sociology of oriental society that “the Orient simply lacks the positive ingredients of Western rationality. Oriental society can be defined as a system of absences…” (p. 39). Similarly, Woodward (1997a) has noted that a resurgent European identity has “been produced against the threat of ‘the Other’. This ‘Other’ often includes workers from North Africa… who are construed as representing a threat from Islamic fundamentalism” (p. 18). The above examples show that the discourse of Islam as 10
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