Beyond the Muslim Prisoner: Religion, Ethnicity and Identity amongst Muslim Male Offenders

• In Event: Poster Session

Abstract

This poster provides an outline of a current qualitative study of religious identity formation amongst Muslim male offenders who have been on license and supervised community orders in England and Wales. The research adopts an oral life story approach to understanding identity formation from the perspective of research participants. It views identity as changing and evolving over the life course and examines religious identity before, during and after conviction. This research outlines the importance of examining religious identity over the whole life course of offenders. It argues that whilst recent media and academic attention (Phillips 2013; Liebling et al 2011; Hamm 2013) has focused on the significance Muslim religious identity has acquired in prisons in Western countries, there is little research which contextualises these changes in religious identity by examining the changes through a more holistic approach. The research addresses the following research question: How does Islamic religious affiliation emerge, change, and be sustained among Muslim offenders on licence? The research has collected narrative accounts about the significance of faith in order to understand individual trajectories of faith. The poster sketches the preliminary themes that emerge through an analysis of the qualitative interview data using Nvivo 10.

Author

• Lamia Irfan, London School of Economics and Political Science