This thesis examines how novels and films by British writers and filmmakers of Muslim heritage address the reshaping of masculinity through migration and interaction with other cultures within the UK. Drawing on a comparative critical framework that combines approaches from feminist, gender and masculinity studies, postcolonial, migration and transcultural studies, Islamic studies and literary and film theory, this thesis engages with five novels and four films that were written or released between 1985 and 2012, by British writers and filmmakers who were either born in a Muslim-majority nation or born to parents originating from a Muslim-majority country and who use their fictions to explore the presence and practices of Muslim cultures and communities in contemporary Britain. Through close analysis of work by Monica Ali, Nadeem Aslam, Sally El Hosaini, Ayub Khan-Din, Hanif Kureishi and Robin Yassin-Kassab, this thesis scrutinises how migrant and subsequent generations of postmigrant male protagonists construct their masculinity and how their conceptions of gender identity and performance are ‘translated’ into a British context amidst this century’s climate of Islamophobia and anti-migrant rhetoric, following events such as the Rushdie Affair, 9/11 and 7/7. In doing so, this thesis contends that through transnational movement and settlement conceptions of ‘Muslimness’, ‘Britishness’, and those of masculinity, are thrown into sharp relief and exposed as unstable and contingent constructs. By foregrounding the transcultural aesthetics and themes of this literary and cinematic corpus, however, I argue that this body of cultural production interrogates similarities and differences between the cultures they are positioned across. I use this transcultural approach to focus on how these texts depict father and son relations, religion, urban marginality and sexuality, and how through these foci, these novels creatively imagine new forms of masculinity that are forged through cultural contact, conflict and entanglement.

No / This study considered the nature of continuing bonds with deceased relatives in a sample of Pakistani Muslims living in the United Kingdom. Ten participants were interviewed following a cultural psychology approach and transcripts were analyzed using grounded theory methodology. Dreaming, talking with others about the deceased, following the deceased's example, keeping memories and mementos, and doing actions thought to help the deceased were forms of continued relationship found. These were intertwined with the process of grieving and were influenced by the family, culture, and religion. Religion was a strong influence on the prominence given by participants to finishing well and on the notion of doing actions thought to help the deceased. Cultural mores, such as the community, and collectivist ethos and the expectation that emotion would be expressed around the time of death, were found to be supportive for some but sources of tension for other participants. Expressing a continuing bond through following the deceased's example so as to make them proud or happy seemed to be reinforced by cultural roots in respect for elders. Participants gave instances of tensions in areas such as expression of emotion and communality versus individualism that arose as a result of their position between two cultural frameworks, some illustrating how assimilation into the host culture set up conflict with the expected norms of their family/ancestral culture. The study highlights how understanding different cultural and religious influences may enrich the concept of continuing bonds.

The dissertation focuses on the conversion experiences and individual processes of twenty-four native British Muslim converts and fifty-two native German Muslim converts, based on personal interviews and completed questionnaires between 2008 and 2010. It analyses the occurring similarities and differences among British and German Muslim converts, and puts them into relation to basic Islamic requirements of the individual, and in the context of their respective social settings. Accordingly, the primary focus is placed on the changing behavioural norms in the individual process of religious conversion concerning family and mixed-gender relations and the converts’ attitudes towards particularly often sensitive and controversial topics. My empirical research on this phenomenon was guided by many research questions, such as: What has provoked the participants to convert to Islam, and what impact and influence does their conversion have on their (former and primarily) non-Muslim environment? Do Muslim converts tend to distance themselves from their former lifestyles and change their social behavioural patterns, and are the objectives and purposes that they see themselves having in the given society directed to them being: bridge-builders or isolators? The topic of conversion to Islam, particularly within Western non-Muslim societies is a growing research phenomenon. At the same time, there has only been little contribution to the literature that deals with comparative analyses of Muslim converts in different countries. This dissertation is based on the conversion research methods by Wohlrarb-Sahr (1999) and Zebiri (2008), and further concentrates on the acute challenges and personal understandings of Muslim converts regarding cultural, religious, and moral changes, changes in belief and adoption of religious practices as well as social relations. Dissatisfaction with the former faith or given social norms, the appeal of the Muslim tenets, the search for identity and the desire to have a sense of belonging included the participants’ motivation for conversion. Taking the former into consideration enabled the result of providing a personal, lively yet rational insight into the lives of British and German Muslim converts.

De-radicalisation has become increasingly prevalent in the UK’s counter-terrorism policy as a strategy for tackling the threat of religiously inspired violence/extremism. Recently, British citizens fighting in Middle Eastern conflicts have rekindled the preoccupation of policymakers with the radicalisation of British Muslims. In fact the work of PREVENT post 2011 has primarily been recalibrated towards a greater focus on de-radicalisation interventions, which is delivered by the police through the Channel programme. Channel is perceived by policy-makers to be a more streamlined and effective way of dealing with radicalised/extremist individuals than the wide remit of PREVENT initiatives between 2006 and 2010. Indeed since becoming placed on a statutory footing in 2015, PREVENT requires public institutions, like schools and universities, to identify ‘vulnerable’ individuals’ at risk of radicalisation. And yet despite the greater attention on de-radicalisation, very little continues to be known about what makes violent individuals leave terrorism behind. De-radicalisation in PREVENT is characterised by the absence of credible research, little or no empirical evidence for policy development, confusion surrounding its conceptual framework, and conflicting policy logics. The following thesis is based on a case-study examination of de-radicalisation with 27 PREVENT practitioners. Through qualitative semi-structured interviews, my investigation seeks to address the problems that arise from the concept and practice of de-radicalisation in PREVENT by ascertaining (a) an ontological understanding of de-radicalisation and (b) the practice of de-radicalisation. The findings of the fieldwork data revealed the existence of multiple conceptions of de-radicalisation and a number of conceptual features unique to the UK context. Despite yielding a more fruitful conceptual and empirical understanding of de-radicalisation, the data in itself nevertheless could not fully explicate the relationship between several critical themes comprehensively within an analytically generative framework. With the inductive method falling short, I draw on Michel Foucault’s concept of the ‘technologies of the self’. Comprising of discursive, disciplinary, and confessional technologies, it is argued that the technologies of the self allows us to reframe the concept beyond the narrow confines of counter-terrorism policy and place it within wider governmental relations. Situated within neo-liberal governmentality, the technologies of the self encourage individuals to work on themselves and regulate their behaviour through a wide range of discursive, practical, and technical interventions. Seen in this way, de-radicalisation is therefore less about the mitigation of violence and more about the making of a particular political and ethical subjectivity. Ultimately, the technology of the self eschews the conceptual problems inherent in the PREVENT conception of de-radicalisation, the limitations evident in the literature, whilst amplifying the salient findings of my fieldwork data. It provides a more robust concept and theory that successfully captures and explains de-radicalisation in the UK context. This thesis thus makes an original contribution to knowledge by (1) being the first study to gather primary data on de-radicalisation in the UK; (2) offering an alternative concept of de-radicalisation; and (3) contributing to theories on the governmentality of radicalisation policies, focusing on the micro-politics of identity in neoliberal governance.

This research aims to explore the lived experiences of young British Muslims in higher education at the University of Bradford and the implications this has for the construction of their identities. The increased participation of Muslims in higher education has been hailed a major success story and is said to have enabled the forging of new, alternative, more empowering identities in comparison to previous generations. This thesis provides a new approach in exploring young British Muslims identity by focusing on the dynamics underling identity construction through the use of a pluralistic method to present an array of informants’ accounts of their experiences (Frost et al., 2011). Phase one of the research included qualitative ethnographic observations which were carried out at the University of Bradford City Campus and was chosen in order to capture the use of the various social settings by informants and to understand actions, practices and meanings people gave to issues relevant to the research. Moreover, phase one was used to identify diversity of experience and select participants for phase two, the more focused aspect of the study which involved narrative interviews. A generative narrative interview was conducted with five young Muslims and aimed to understand how students negotiated their identity as Muslims in Britain within the higher educational contexts. The research revealed that rather than Muslims utilising university as a place whereby they are able to forge new identities, as depicted in previous literature, higher education is a context which demands the negotiation of identities that both enabled and constrained.

This thesis explores the experiences, encounters, responses and reactions to Islamophobia through a narrative study of forty female Pakistani and British students with a Pakistani heritage in universities across England. In exploring Islamophobia as a ‘racialised’ phenomenon, the participant narratives locate the experiences and encounters of Islamophobia within their ‘intersubjective’ realities, across various ‘communities’ of ‘discourse.’ These realities are informed by the wider socio-political milieu of a war against Al Qa’ida and its affiliates that ‘securitizes’ the Muslim and Pakistani identity(s) particularly in Britain. The university is also implicated in the counter terrorism agenda of the state, depicted as a ‘vulnerable’ space for radicalizing students. However, females in this discussion are predominantly absent within the academic and public narratives. Therefore, this research will explore the experience of Islamophobia, the way it is perceived by the British/Pakistani/Muslim/female student, and the way students respond and react to it within the university. The research employs a narrative method of inquiry. The narrative analysis is informed by a Bakhtinian notion of ‘dialogics’ to explore the multiplicity of ‘meanings’ that emerge through individual accounts of Islamophobia located within their public and private realms. In exploring these narratives the thesis illustrates how ‘degrees of religiosity’ influences encounters and experiences of Islamophobia, and highlights responses and reactions of students to such experiences, that include individual and group activism to challenge Islamophobia and the insecure meta-narrative about Muslims and terrorism. The research further focuses on both the religious identity of the Muslim student, and their problematic ethnic identity, Pakistani demonstrating how in a securitized socio-political milieu Muslim students are further vulnerable to experiences of Islamophobia, in the form of Pakophobia, where both their religious and ethnic identities are held suspect. These narratives have implications for the emerging understanding of Islamophobia as a ‘racialised’ phenomenon. They further have implications for universities that are encouraged to participate in the government’s counter-terrorism agenda. The narratives by locating the research within the particularities of a wider socio-political milieu that ‘racialises’ and ‘securitizes’ Muslims raises critical questions about the nature of discrimination in a post 9/11, 7/7 era that may have repercussions for other Muslim minority groups.

Depuis le début des années 1990, les gouvernements britanniques et français ont encouragé la création d’organisations musulmanes. Cependant, près de vingt ans après la création en 1997 du Conseil musulman de Grande-Bretagne (MCB) du rôle de plus proche allié musulman du gouvernement et de porte-parole des communautés, la question de la représentation musulmane n’est toujours pas réglée. En France, le parcours du Conseil français du culte musulman (CFCM) créé par le gouvernement en 2003 offre certains parallèles avec l’histoire du MCB: affaibli par les luttes intestines de ses membres, celui-ci a finalement échoué à réaliser l'unité organisationnelle. Dans ma thèse, je compare ces deux histoires singulières et j’étudie les facteurs qui ont entraîné le déclin de ces conseils nationaux. Je démontre en m’appuyant sur des rapports gouvernementaux, des déclarations officielles, des articles de presse et le témoignage des principaux acteurs de la création de ces organismes, qu'ils ont parfois pu jouer un rôle clé dans certaines étapes de l’histoire des mobilisations des musulmans dans les deux pays. Cependant, la légitimité des organisations cultuelles et leur capacité à répondre aux besoins des musulmans ont été remis en question dans le contexte de l’après 11 septembre 2001. Les conseils nationaux ont ainsi cédé la place à de nouveaux types de mobilisation politique. Une multitude d'organisations musulmanes « progressistes » mettant l'accent sur la cohésion sociale, le dialogue interreligieux ou la participation civique a ainsi vu le jour. Ces nouveaux acteurs locaux, en se fixant de nouveaux objectifs plus généraux et ouverts que les besoins particuliers des seuls musulmans aident à la construction de nouvelles identités musulmanes. Ils s'efforcent de transformer l'image de “communautés” repliées sur elles-mêmes en un groupe de citoyens dynamiques tournés vers les autres. / Successive British and French governments have encouraged the formation of bodies claiming to speak for Muslims since the early 1990s. However, nearly two decades after the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) was created in 1997, the issue of Muslim representation is still pending. In France, the trajectory of the government-backed the Conseil français du culte musulman (CFCM) created in 2003 is parallel in some respects: weakened by the members’ infighting, it finally failed to achieve organisational unity.In my dissertation, I draw parallels between the two cases and consider the reasons which led to the decline of these national ‘representative’ bodies. Using government reports, official statements, press articles and personal accounts of the individuals involved in their inception, I argue that they played a significant role in the early stages of Muslim mobilisation. However, once their legitimacy and ability to cater for Muslim communities in the new post-9/11 context was called into question, the national councils gave way to new types of Muslim political mobilisation.As a result, a multitude of “progressive” Muslim organisations focusing on social cohesion, interfaith outreach, civic participation and social welfare emerged. By shifting their objectives from accommodating the needs of the Muslim communities to social cohesion as a whole, these new local actors not only help build new Muslim identities but also strive to transform the image of Muslims from an inward-looking community to outward-looking dynamic citizens.

Inspired by the increasingly high visibility of British Muslim NGOs (BMNGOs), by the lack of research on their discourses and by the growing salience of frames theory within the mainstream NGO sector, this thesis offers a significant and original contribution by exploring, describing, and analysing the discourse of two BMNGOs carefully selected as case studies: Islamic Relief (IR) and MADE (Muslim Action for Development and the Environment). The primary aim of the thesis is empirical, driven by the research question: ‘what frames seem to be at work in the discourse of BMNGOs?’ Through an in-depth analysis of a range of public documents produced by the two case studies (e.g. annual reports and websites), the thesis identifies and analyses the main frames used by IR and MADE to articulate three key aspects of their discourses: i) organisational identity; ii) mobilisation efforts; and iii) conceptualisations of their supporter base. Guided by this overarching research question, the thesis offers an original and interdisciplinary insight into the nuances of the case studies’ meaning systems, thereby showing their complexities and resonance with multiple narratives and ideational repertoires. The emerging ‘thick descriptions’ of IR and MADE represent, in and of themselves, the main results of the study, which is intended to enable readers from different disciplinary backgrounds to gain a nuanced insight into BMNGOs’ discourses. At a secondary level, the thesis also pursues the theoretical aim to start exploring how the frames identified in the study inform the two research sub-questions: ‘how to think about BMNGOs?’ and ‘how to think about British Muslim civic engagement?’ Several observations are put forward in this regard. Taken together, these suggest that IR can be understood as a faith-based organisation that simultaneously draws on a range of heritages and increasingly offers opportunities for active citizenship among British Muslims within the framework of what is broadly characterizable as a ‘NGO-led order’. On the other hand, the thesis suggests that MADE can be understood as an exemplar of the current era of ‘loose activist networks’, more precisely as a ‘Muslim lifestyle’ social movement organisation that promotes among British Muslims a multifaceted form of civic engagement inspired by an Islamic ethical framework.

This research is an attempt to understand the living experiences of young adult Muslim SGIs, in Britain. This research advocates to understand their living experiences from the perspective of social identity approach which discusses multiple dimensions of identity, unlike acculturation theory which focuses on a mono dimension of identity. This research introduced a multiple social identity model for Muslim SGIs. Contrary to the previous literature, the first study, the interview study, revealed that they explained their conflicts with their non-Muslim British peers and with their parents on the basis of non-shared identity. With their non-Muslim British peers they shared cultural (national) identity, therefore, they explained their conflicts in terms of different religious values (practices); with their parents they shared religious identity, therefore they explained their conflicts in terms of different cultural (ethnic) values and practices. They argued that their parents practise various cultural practices in the name of Islam, and Muslim SGIs distinguished Islam from their parents' culture, and identified with the former, not the latter, and attributed their conflicts to their parents' cultural values. In addition, they explained that their religious identity enables them to deal with conflicts with peers and parents. The second study, the focus group, successfully validated the findings of the first study, and it broadened the understanding of the fact that SGIs and their parents both explained their religion in their own cultural context. Their religious (Muslim) identity also promotes their relationships with their non-Muslim British peers and parents, which contributes positively towards their British identity, and more specifically they define themselves as British Muslims. In the third study, the survey study, the hypotheses were developed on the bases of the qualitative studies. It was expected and found that British and Muslim identities were positively correlated; they had non-significant identity differences with the Muslim identity and significant identity difference with British and ethnic identities from their parents. Ethnic identity difference from their parents was the only found predictor of their attribution of their conflicts to their parents' cultural values.