Integration, minorities and the rhetoric of civilization

The case of British Pakistani Muslims in the UK and Malay Muslims in Singapore

Bibliographic Data

ID7284255
AuthorsGabriele Marranci (National University of Singapore, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume34
Issue5
Pages814-832
Publication date2011-02-10
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnic and Racial Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0141-9870 • E-ISSN: 1466-4356
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01419870.2010.539702
OpenAlexW2050545642
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited35

This article discusses, through a comparative approach, the experience of young Muslims in Singapore and the UK as far as integration is concerned. The paper suggests that one of the main issues faced by young Muslims, in both countries, is how they are represented and understood. Indeed, British South Asian Muslims as well as Malay Muslim Singaporeans are still living in a dynamic of postcolonialism. The heritage of British colonialism still, although latently, works through the creation of categories and classifications of how identity should be defined. In both the cases of British South Asian Muslims and Singaporean Malay Muslims, there is often an unspoken request for the imagined ethnic minority to mimic the 'achiever' majority. It is in this dynamic that we can recognize what I have called a 'rhetoric of civilization'. Keywords: Malay MuslimsMuslims in the UKSingaporeidentitycivilizationintegration Notes 1. Note that in Singapore ethnicity has been institutionalized through a rather rigid CMIO (Chinese, Malay, Indian and Others) ethnic identity classification which marks the official political position on social identities (see Chua 2007 Chua Beng Huat 2007 'Multiracialism as official policy: a critique of the management of difference in Singapore' , in Norman Vasu Social Resilience in Singapore: Re?ections from the London Bombings , Singapore : Select Books [Google Scholar]). 2. By environment I mean here both the actual physical space as well as the interaction taking place within it and also the objects, material and conceptual, which one may meet within it. 3. Just to mention some examples: Chodorow (1978 Chodorow, Nancy. 1978. The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender, Berkeley: University of California Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]); Dumont (1970 Dumont, Louis. 1970. Homo Hierarchicus, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. 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Aesthetics · Civilization · Colonialism · Ethnic group · Identity (music · Islam · Linguistics · Malay · Media studies · Multiculturalism · Political science · Rhetoric · Sociology · Anthropology · Asian Studies and History · Education and Islamic Studies · Gender Studies · History · Law · Socioeconomic Development in Asia

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