Tenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

How do American Muslim college students construct and navigate notions of Islamic normativity? Based on two years of (ongoing) ethnographic work and interviews at a private and secular university on the West Coast, my dissertation explores this question in the lives of American Muslim undergraduates, focusing on six students. Preliminary findings indicate that students grapple with the “Islamic” and being Muslim in three areas, all mediated by politics: religious practice, female leadership, and liberal and conservative activism. Central to this “meaning-making” process (Parks 2000; 2011) are intersections of race, gender, and class with dynamics of power and secularity (Asad 2003; Jackson 2017). My research builds on Peek’s (2005) and Mir’s (2014) work on how students “become Muslim” and negotiate identities, but with more attention to how a theoretical and contested “Islamic” – formed in this historic political moment and a specific sociocultural context – influences their ability to be Muslim on campus.