The purpose of this project is to examine how contemporary contexts of Islamophobia contribute to shaping notions and performances of Muslim womanhood. I center Muslim female social media influencers in my analysis and examine how they perform and (re)define Muslim womanhood through fashion, aesthetic labor, the hijab, and modest embodiment practices online. The specific research question that undergirds this project is, "How do contexts and discourses of Islamophobia contribute to shaping notions and performances of Muslim womanhood?" My data is derived from interviews with Muslimah social media influencers in the US, UK, and Canada; a survey with their social media followers, and a content analysis of their photo and video posts on Instagram and YouTube. Findings suggest that racialized and gendered expectations of Muslim womanhood emerge on the one hand, from the western non-Muslim community's racialized perceptions and understandings of Muslim women and Islam, and on the other, from the western Muslim community's reaction to its racialization in the global war on terror. The result of these expectations is the imposition of representational and moral responsibilities on Muslim women, who are regarded as visible and public representations of the Muslim community and of Islam as a faith. Findings also suggest that in response to the burden of these expectations, Muslim women exercise their agency to mobilize Islamic feminisms to their advantage in order to negotiate with, resist, and critique western Muslim and non-Muslim expectations of modesty, piety, empowerment, and the hijab. Consequently, Muslimah influencers are forcing western Muslim and non-Muslim communities to reevaluate their expectations of who fits within the category the 'Muslim Woman' while also opening up a discursive space for the possibility of new formulations and conceptualizations of Muslim womanhood that are more aligned with egalitarian Islamic feminist interpretations of Muslimah ways of living and being. / Doctor of Philosophy / In this research study, I examine how Islamophobia has contributed to shaping western Muslim and non-Muslim community perceptions and expectations of Muslim women. I focus specifically on Muslim female social media influencers to understand how they perform Muslim femininity, modesty, piety and the hijab on Instagram and YouTube. I collected data from interviews with Muslim female social media influencers in the U.S., UK, and Canada, a survey with their social media followers, and photos and videos posted by Muslim female influencers on social media. My findings show that Muslim women must contend with expectations from western non-Muslim communities, whose perceptions of Muslim emerge from Islamophobic understandings of Muslims and Islam. Simultaneously, Muslim women must contend with certain moral and representational responsibilities imposed on them by Muslim communities in the west, who are currently working to address and counteract Islamophobia, by posing a positive image of Muslims and Islam in the eyes of the western public. My findings also show that in response to the burden of these expectation, Muslim women critique these gendered burdens by exercising their agency to interpret Quranic scripture on modesty, the hijab, and gendered behaviors with an Islamic feminist lens. In doing so, they are forcing Muslim and non-Muslim communities to reevaluate the moral and representational burdens placed on Muslim women's shoulders, while also offering a space where others can conceptualize and perform Muslim womanhood in ways that align more with egalitarian Islamic feminist interpretations of Muslim women's ways of living and being.

This thesis is an exploratory qualitative case study of Western Muslim women‟s religious experiences in Scotland. It situates piety as an object of research and was based on two and a half years of extensive participant observations and conversations with thirty Muslim women aged between 20 and 50 from diverse backgrounds, who regularly took part in religious circles where knowledge and practices of Islam are exchanged, learnt, authenticated, questioned and disseminated among the participants. It incorporated historical research methods such as library research method and interviews with the local Muslims in an attempt to research the history of Muslims‟ settlement, the establishment of mosques in Scotland and the emergence of Muslim women‟s religious gatherings in the localities. This study posed following questions: (a) How did the Muslim women individually and collectively cultivate piety? (b)What were the factors that led the women to return to their faith and attain piety? (c) What are the religious sources they used to nurture their piety? And (d) How did they approach the sources and deal with everyday situations in their surroundings as faithful and pious western Muslim women? This study has argued that piety is not a hidden characteristic in one person but it is observable through various expressions. For examples, through their collective participations in the piety circles and Islamic classes and the contributions they made for themselves, their family and the Muslim communities after they got inspired, learnt and motivated from their religious circles and members. The presence of structured organisations of Muslim women religious circles represents the presence of Muslim women‟s autonomous religious movement and their involvement in the transmission of Islamic knowledge at an informal level. It was through discussions about Islamic texts such as the texts of the Quran and Hadith during their gatherings, that the women found their own religious autonomy and the realisation that Islam serves as a liberating tool in many ways in their lives.

This work examines the relationship between multiculturalism, feminism and violence against women within the context of Muslim women in Scotland.  It problematises multiculturalism and feminism by critiquing the difficulties which arise when multiculturalism is unqualified and feminism is constructed from white middle-class Western liberal values.  This illuminates the interstices created in binary thinking by employing intersectional and interdisciplinary methodologies.  The work uses categories which relate to women’s social and political status, such as human rights, citizenship, immigrants status, refugee, asylum-seeker and ‘paperless’ as they apply to women in the study.  These categories are then used to interpret violence against women as it is, or may be experienced by Muslim women in Scotland. The aim is to develop critical multiculturalism and pluralize the category ‘woman’ in order to move beyond binary notions of difference and sameness, employing intersectional approaches in a move towards a more fluid and holistic understanding of identity.  The limitations of gender as a category of analysis and the importance of ethnicity, religious affiliation, class, dis/ability, maternal status and generation in the construction of identity, changes in life-cycles and geographic location, make the appeal of an intersectional approach and methods explicit.  This is because intersectional approaches recognise that in order to create as inclusive a view as possible, there are categories which could be equally relevant.  To create responsive, flexible and cost-effective social policies there are a number of disciplines and themes to be traversed and the work moves between religious studies, gender studies, globalisation and social policy in order to contribute to the development of new, inclusive methods and theories regarding critical multiculturalism and Muslim women in Scotland.

No description available.

As part of the British government's Prevent strategy following the July 2005 attacks in London, Muslim women were engaged and empowered as allies to tackle violent extremism. This empowerment greatly improved the social and economic status of Muslim women in Britain. However the primary objective, to prevent the escalation of violent extremism, was not achieved. Furthermore, the way in which Prevent was implemented significantly damaged relations between those who were involved in the strategy and those who were excluded. The overarching research question was: 'How has the role of Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslim women in British society changed from the period 1995 to 2010 as a result of the 9/11 and 7/7 terrorist attacks and the government's Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) strategy or Prevent agenda?' This, and a number of sub-questions, were examined using a mixed methodology approach, which included information drawn from academic literature, open source reporting and journalism, as well as surveys, interviews and focus group discussions with British Muslim women. The study concludes that Muslim women took advantage of the opportunities offered to them by the British government as part of the Prevent strategy, not particularly with the intentions of preventing violent extremism, but more because their progression was an assertion of their own human rights. However, during this time, many Muslim institutions were being ostracised by the government because of their Islamic school of thought, older Muslims and Muslim men were excluded, and Muslims experienced resentment from non-Muslim communities that had lost their government funding due to the exclusive focus on the Muslim community. The findings of this study imply the need for further research into some of the issues highlighted above, also advocating the commissioning of an urgent review of the British government's Prevent agenda, to include the policies that conflate Islam and violence.

<p>Institution: Högskolan i Halmstad</p><p>Titel: Vi kan väl träffas och fika.</p><p>Några muslimska invandrarkvinnors upplevelser av</p><p>kontakten och samarbetet med svensk skola.</p><p>Författare: Susanne Castro & Birgitta Johansson</p><p>Typ: C-uppsats. Examensarbete i lärarprogrammet.</p><p>Sidantal: 53</p><p>Handledare: Claes Ericsson & Ulrika Sjöberg</p><p>Examinator: Anders Persson</p><p>Medexaminatorer: Torbjörn Jansson & Ole Olsson</p><p>Slutseminarium: 2007-01-10</p><p>Dagens svenska skola skall arbeta för en ökad föräldrakontakt då elevens sociala och</p><p>kunskapsmässiga utveckling menas vara gynnad av det aktiva samarbetet mellan hem och</p><p>skola. Genom uppsatsens litteraturforskning ses en skev fördelning av inflytandet till nackdel</p><p>för föräldrar med invandrarbakgrund. Arbetets syfte har varit att med en hermeneutisk ansats</p><p>intervjua och tolka fyra muslimska invandrarkvinnors framställning av sina erfarenheter av</p><p>kontakten och samarbetet med sina barns svenska skolor. Vidare avsågs att jämföra dessa</p><p>upplevelser med styrande texters budskap och resultat från tidigare forskning.</p><p>I analysen avspeglas fyra individer med skilda men också jämförbara erfarenheter. Tre av</p><p>kvinnorna finner det på olika sätt svårt att få en tillfredsställande kontakt med barnens lärare</p><p>och en bra behållning av föräldramöten. En av kvinnorna avskiljer sig från de andra genom sitt</p><p>stora förtroende för sin egen roll när det gäller kontakt och samarbete med skolan. Det som</p><p>förenar dem är viljan att göra allt de kan gällande trygghet och framtid för sina barn. Kvinnorna</p><p>framför idéer om möten som skulle kännas inbjudande och givande. Deras vilja att delta i</p><p>barnens utveckling stämmer väl överens med skolans styrande texter medan många av deras</p><p>upplevelser tyvärr motsvarar tidigare forskning.</p><p>Nyckelord: invandrarföräldrar, kontakt, muslim, samarbete, skola.</p>

Institution: Högskolan i Halmstad Titel: Vi kan väl träffas och fika. Några muslimska invandrarkvinnors upplevelser av kontakten och samarbetet med svensk skola. Författare: Susanne Castro & Birgitta Johansson Typ: C-uppsats. Examensarbete i lärarprogrammet. Sidantal: 53 Handledare: Claes Ericsson & Ulrika Sjöberg Examinator: Anders Persson Medexaminatorer: Torbjörn Jansson & Ole Olsson Slutseminarium: 2007-01-10 Dagens svenska skola skall arbeta för en ökad föräldrakontakt då elevens sociala och kunskapsmässiga utveckling menas vara gynnad av det aktiva samarbetet mellan hem och skola. Genom uppsatsens litteraturforskning ses en skev fördelning av inflytandet till nackdel för föräldrar med invandrarbakgrund. Arbetets syfte har varit att med en hermeneutisk ansats intervjua och tolka fyra muslimska invandrarkvinnors framställning av sina erfarenheter av kontakten och samarbetet med sina barns svenska skolor. Vidare avsågs att jämföra dessa upplevelser med styrande texters budskap och resultat från tidigare forskning. I analysen avspeglas fyra individer med skilda men också jämförbara erfarenheter. Tre av kvinnorna finner det på olika sätt svårt att få en tillfredsställande kontakt med barnens lärare och en bra behållning av föräldramöten. En av kvinnorna avskiljer sig från de andra genom sitt stora förtroende för sin egen roll när det gäller kontakt och samarbete med skolan. Det som förenar dem är viljan att göra allt de kan gällande trygghet och framtid för sina barn. Kvinnorna framför idéer om möten som skulle kännas inbjudande och givande. Deras vilja att delta i barnens utveckling stämmer väl överens med skolans styrande texter medan många av deras upplevelser tyvärr motsvarar tidigare forskning. Nyckelord: invandrarföräldrar, kontakt, muslim, samarbete, skola.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of History, 2003. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 49-53).

Till svenska sjukhus, vårdcentraler och äldreboende kommer patienter med en annan kulturell bakgrund. På grund av detta krävs att en sjuksköterska har en bra förståelse, en bred och djup insikt i olika kulturer och levnadssätt för att ge patienten ett gott bemötande. Syftet med studien var att beskriva kunskap om de olika faktorer som kan påverka sjuksköterskans bemötande av patienter med muslimsk bakgrund. En litteraturstudie har genomförts, som baseras på vetenskapliga artiklar och fokuserar på bemötande av patienter med muslimsk bakgrund. Materialet har bearbetats genom innehållsanalys. Resultatet visade att sjuksköterska bör ha kunskap om uppfattningar om hälsa och ohälsa, om kultur och tradition hos muslimer. Sjuksköterska behöver ha kunskap om vilka relation som finns mellan familjemedlemmar, släktingar och vänner, samt bör ha kännedom om annorlunda inställningar till religion som kan finnas. Svårigheterna med ett gott bemötande av personer som har muslimsk bakgrund kan uppstå på grund av att sjukvårdpersonalen har bristande kunskaper om muslimsk kultur.