"Being Unapologetically Muslim Now": Muslim Students' Experiences With Belonging on a College Campus

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 9
  In Roundtable Session: Sustaining and Belonging in Higher Education

Abstract

Grounded on theories of belonging (Abu-el-Haj, 2015) and hypervisibility (Gordon, 1997), this paper explores how Muslim-American youth at a Californian public university exercise agency in relation to experiences with their sense of belonging to the university. Participants described lower levels of belonging due to feeling unrecognized and having their Muslim identity objectified. Understanding that the institutional space is a contested space, they then found institutional agents to push for resources to redefine the limitations of membership to the imagined community by building semi-autonomous spaces within the institution to be “unapologetically Muslim.” This study demonstrates the importance of recognizing students’ active role in evolving discourses and practices of belonging to restructure the barriers denying them membership to the larger community.

Author

• Fatima Raja, University of California - Santa Cruz