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Islam on Campus: Contested Identities and the Cultures of Higher Education in Britain

Online ISBN:
9780191881787
Print ISBN:
9780198846789
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Islam on Campus: Contested Identities and the Cultures of Higher Education in Britain

Alison Scott-Baumann,
Alison Scott-Baumann
Professor of Society and Belief and Associate Director Research (Impact and Public Engagement), School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London
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Mathew Guest,
Mathew Guest
Professor in the Sociology of Religion, Durham University
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Shuruq Naguib,
Shuruq Naguib
Lecturer in Islamic Studies, Lancaster University
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Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor,
Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor
Assistant Professor and Research Group Lead for Faith and Peaceful Relations, Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University
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Aisha Phoenix
Aisha Phoenix
Independent scholar
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Published online:
19 November 2020
Published in print:
22 October 2020
Online ISBN:
9780191881787
Print ISBN:
9780198846789
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

This book explores how Islam is represented, perceived and lived within higher education in Britain. It is a book about the changing nature of university life, and the place of religion within it. Even while many universities maintain ambiguous or affirming orientations to religious institutions for reasons to do with history and ethos, much western scholarship has presumed higher education to be a strongly secularizing force. This framing has resulted in religion often being marginalized or ignored as a cultural irrelevance by the university sector. However, recent times have seen higher education increasingly drawn into political discourses that problematize religion in general, and Islam in particular, as an object of risk. Using the largest data set yet collected in the UK (2015–18) this book explores university life and the ways in which ideas about Islam and Muslim identities are produced, experienced, perceived, appropriated, and objectified. We ask what role universities and Muslim higher education institutions play in the production, reinforcement and contestation of emerging narratives about religious difference. This is a culturally nuanced treatment of universities as sites of knowledge production, and contexts for the negotiation of perspectives on culture and religion among an emerging generation. We demonstrate the urgent need to release Islam from its official role as the othered, the feared. When universities achieve this we will be able to help students of all affiliations and of none to be citizens of the campus in preparation for being citizens of the world.

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