Negotiating Perceptions and Constructing Identities: Muslim Strategies in St. John’s, Newfoundland

Abstract

This thesis examines how Muslims in Canada negotiate perceptions in their interactions with non-Muslims and other Muslims. What strategies do Muslims in Canada use to combat these perceptions? How do perceptions of Islam and Muslims impact Muslims’ constructions of identities? In order to answer these questions a case study was conducted in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Interviews with Muslims living in St. John’s explored how they respond to perceptions of Islam and how they negotiate their identities in everyday life. This study found that perceptions of Islam and Muslims played an important role in the construction of Muslims’ identities despite the low incidence of Islamophobia. Perceptions of Islam and Muslims often led to an increase in knowledge of Islam, an increase in affiliation with their Muslim identities and increase in religiosity. However, an alternative impact was a distancing from Islam. Participants used numerous strategies to combat negative perceptions of Islam and Muslims including taking up an educator role and becoming representative. Further, many participants separated culture and religion, creating a ‘true’ Islam and contributing to islamophilia. However, other participants challenged philic and phobic accounts of Islam by voicing their lived practices and presenting multiple and dynamic Islams.