Beyond Belief: Muslim Student Space-Making and Political Claim-Making in a Midwestern High School

• In Event: Claiming Space, Occupying Belonging: Immigrants and Refugees Contesting Otherness in Education

Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic data collected in 2013-2014, the aim of this paper is to highlight the production and contestation of minoritized student space at a suburban Midwestern public high school. I use classroom observations and interviews to explore the spatial practices of difference, focusing primarily on the closing and reopening of a Muslim Student Association (MSA) to highlight how spatial practices and space-making in schools may reflect broader sociopolitical struggles and possibilities for transformation.

My analysis departs from two related analytical concepts, those of political claim-making (Ranciere, 2010) and practices of space-making (LeFebvre, 1991). Together, these concepts provide valuable framing for how these youths are physically, pedagogically, and discursively positioned within the school, as well as how they transform and disrupt these positionings. The targeting of the MSA speaks to challenges of representation and recognition that these youth face in school. In light of these dynamics, I argue that their mobilization and activism against the closure of this space represents a collective claim of belonging and refashioning of their ascribed Otherness.

By bringing attention to how school as an educational space is at once conceived, perceived, and lived, this paper brings to light the violence of multicultural hospitality when it is practiced as a form of erasure and imposing transposable identities onto different youth bodies. The students’ struggle and successful challenge of the principal’s decision is significant for highlighting how youth can challenge static conceptions of youth identity and educational spaces in school.

Author

• Roozbeh Shirazi, University of Minnesota