#WhatBritishMuslimsReallyThink

In the discursive construction of intra-national sameness, religious identity is often a key criterion for inclusion or exclusion from the imagined national community. In today’s Europe, the boundaries of individual nations are increasingly secured by applying a logic characteristic of Islamophobia...

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Main Author: Mirjam Aeschbach
Format: Article
Language:deu
Published: Zeitschrift für junge Religionswissenschaft
Series:Zeitschrift für Junge Religionswissenschaft
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/zjr/896
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author Mirjam Aeschbach
author_facet Mirjam Aeschbach
author_sort Mirjam Aeschbach
collection DOAJ
description In the discursive construction of intra-national sameness, religious identity is often a key criterion for inclusion or exclusion from the imagined national community. In today’s Europe, the boundaries of individual nations are increasingly secured by applying a logic characteristic of Islamophobia and cultural racism. Therefore, the negotiation of Muslim identity and its intersection with the respective national identity category is of particular interest. In this study, the Twitter hashtag #WhatBritishMuslimsReallyThink was examined in order to analyze how members of the British Muslim digital community both construct and reinforce their collective identity as well as employ discursive strategies to negotiate British national identity and their national belonging in the face of exclusionary political rhetoric. Drawing on a corpus of 480 tweets containing the hashtag #WhatBritishMuslimsReallyThink, a mixed-method content analysis approach was employed to analyze the topics and strategies present in the hashtag discourse. Thereby, the issues addressed and the strategies of belonging employed in the Twitter conversation are embedded in a larger public discourse on British national identity and intra-national boundary making. This research investigates Twitter as a site of national and religious identity construction and sheds light on the contested nature of such identity categories.
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spelling doaj.art-779ddb998c6a4b489327a0b164bcdb412024-02-14T13:06:50ZdeuZeitschrift für junge ReligionswissenschaftZeitschrift für Junge Religionswissenschaft1862-58861210.4000/zjr.896#WhatBritishMuslimsReallyThinkMirjam AeschbachIn the discursive construction of intra-national sameness, religious identity is often a key criterion for inclusion or exclusion from the imagined national community. In today’s Europe, the boundaries of individual nations are increasingly secured by applying a logic characteristic of Islamophobia and cultural racism. Therefore, the negotiation of Muslim identity and its intersection with the respective national identity category is of particular interest. In this study, the Twitter hashtag #WhatBritishMuslimsReallyThink was examined in order to analyze how members of the British Muslim digital community both construct and reinforce their collective identity as well as employ discursive strategies to negotiate British national identity and their national belonging in the face of exclusionary political rhetoric. Drawing on a corpus of 480 tweets containing the hashtag #WhatBritishMuslimsReallyThink, a mixed-method content analysis approach was employed to analyze the topics and strategies present in the hashtag discourse. Thereby, the issues addressed and the strategies of belonging employed in the Twitter conversation are embedded in a larger public discourse on British national identity and intra-national boundary making. This research investigates Twitter as a site of national and religious identity construction and sheds light on the contested nature of such identity categories.https://journals.openedition.org/zjr/896National IdentitySocial MediaDigital ReligionMuslim IdentityDiscourse
spellingShingle Mirjam Aeschbach
#WhatBritishMuslimsReallyThink
Zeitschrift für Junge Religionswissenschaft
National Identity
Social Media
Digital Religion
Muslim Identity
Discourse
title #WhatBritishMuslimsReallyThink
title_full #WhatBritishMuslimsReallyThink
title_fullStr #WhatBritishMuslimsReallyThink
title_full_unstemmed #WhatBritishMuslimsReallyThink
title_short #WhatBritishMuslimsReallyThink
title_sort whatbritishmuslimsreallythink
topic National Identity
Social Media
Digital Religion
Muslim Identity
Discourse
url https://journals.openedition.org/zjr/896
work_keys_str_mv AT mirjamaeschbach whatbritishmuslimsreallythink