Emerging Muslim Identity in India’s Globalized and Mediated Society

Emerging Muslim Identity in India’s Globalized and Mediated Society
An Ethnographic Investigation of the Halting Modernities
of the Muslim Youth of Jamia Enclave, New Delhi

By Khan, Tabassum
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University,
Mass Communication (Communication), 2009.
Pages: 276p.
585.04 kB PDF file

Abstract:
This is an ethnographic study exploring media consumption patterns of youth belonging to a distinct Muslim community in New Delhi. This study looked at how global and Indian media, which have emerged as a powerful force of social change in India since 1991, redefined the isolation of Muslims in the segregated Jamia Enclave. After 1991 India liberalized its economy, and Indian audiences were then able to receive multiple Indian language and global satellite channels in addition to the single state broadcaster available previously. The Muslim researcher approached the field from the perspective of an insider and employed participant observation and immersion in daily activities of the community to understand how media have been integrated into the lives of Muslim youth. The aim was to understand the way mediated interactions influenced the construction of the identity of Muslim youth born and raised in the age of globalized media and liberalized Indian economy. The study explored their self-perceptions as members of their Islamic community, as Indians, and as gendered individuals.
The findings challenge essentialist constructs of identity that define Muslims as isolationists and resistant to processes of modernization. However, the youth of Jamia youth did not share the same ideological attachment to their community that was expressed by members of the older generations. The youth also gave greater credence to their national identity, as opposed to their Islamic religious and cultural identity. Unlike their mothers, young Muslim women followed examples presented in the media promoting new ambitions and careers outside their community. Among these young women, it was consumerism rather than feminist motives that acted as inspiration for careers outside Jamia. Yet their desires created anxieties among Muslim men. The ambition expressed by Muslim youth to move out of their seclusion and be part of the wider Indian society was propelled by a rising consumerism in Indian society. Muslim youth had internalized media’s emphasis on materialism and it shaped their emergent identity. Even so, while these youths sought new identities they did not really leave their community behind. These experiences call for a fresh perspective on postcolonial identities in globalized mediated societies.

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موضوع: السلام عليكم 12/1/2010, 11:00 am

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