A Critical Exploration of British Millennial Muslim Converts’ Identities, Conversion Narratives and Educational Experiences

Olusola, Jeremiah A. (2024) A Critical Exploration of British Millennial Muslim Converts’ Identities, Conversion Narratives and Educational Experiences. PhD thesis, University of Worcester.

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Abstract

This thesis expands understanding of millennial Muslim converts within the context of post-9/11 Britain. Three currents of discussion constitute the practical and theoretical considerations that form the basis of this study. First, in examining the experience of religious transformation within the lives of converts, the concept of conversion is explored from a variety of angles. Second, the thesis investigates the identity formation of convert Muslims within a contextual backdrop wherein they have become the subject of controversy and social scientific inquiry. Third, the study uncovers the impact of their conversions and identity formations upon their educational experiences.

In the years following 9/11, some scholars have made the unsettling inference that there now exists within contemporary Britain a disdain for religious identity. However, there has been little sustained reflection upon the effects of this on the convert Muslim demographic, particularly within educational discourse. This thesis disrupts that trend by reflecting upon the experiences of fifteen millennial-born convert Muslims whose conversions occurred within the context of secondary and post-secondary education in Britain. By highlighting the unique insights available through my own positionality as a convert Muslim, I assert the place of converts within the wider discourse on Muslims in education; not reductively, as the subjects of psychological and phenomenological fascination, but as an experientially distinct, yet constitutive, part of the whole religious group. In doing this, I present arguments for the enfranchisement of convert Muslims’ voices in readings of convert identity and in research within and about Muslim populations.

My methodology is oriented towards ethnography; a methodology based on prolonged observation and reporting, to produce analytical and explanatory accounts of the participants. The desire to look backwards at the conversion experiences of my participants, and forwards to the implications of those experiences, angles my approach towards narrative inquiry also. To encapsulate and describe this grouping of methods, I have used the term ‘narrative ethnography’. Based upon a thematic analysis of my narrative-ethnographic data, three interrelated findings emerge from the study, which contribute to existing scholarship in the fields of education, the sociology of religion and conversion theorising. The first contribution relates to the lived religiosity of convert Muslims and how this manifests, because of their conversion experiences, within their social, educational and digital environments. The second contribution relates to the distinct identity configurations of millennial convert Muslims, which, I posit, are characterised by forms of resistance, scriptural literalism and unique behavioural nuances. The third contribution relates to converts’ educational experiences. In this regard, the study identifies educational spaces as the site of marginality, struggle and tension for the converts.

In making original contributions to theoretical discussions about conversion, postsecular thinking and digital methodologies, the study rests at the interface between the sociology of religion and education, informing the development of pastoral services for Muslims in education, and may be brought to bear on formulating educational material and practices which adequately reflect the diverse forms of religious adherence in modern Britain.

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