This document provides an overview of a study applying Pierre Bourdieu's sociological framework to understand the influences on young Australian Muslim men's identity formation and expression. The study utilizes in-depth interviews and case studies of three groups - an activist hip hop group, a public intellectual, and a terrorist cell. Preliminary findings reveal the diverse influences like family, education, employment, culture and different levels of capital possession. The document outlines the theoretical framework, methodology including interviews and surveillance transcripts, and provides examples of insights gained about the different cases.
1. Applying Bourdieu to the Study of Young
Australian Muslim Men
Joshua M. Roose
National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies,
Australia
The University of Melbourne
jmroose@unimelb.edu.au
3. Background
• This Presentation: Scope
• Situation of Muslims in Australia
– Historical preoccupation with the ‘Other’ and potential ‘Threat’
• What Ghassan Hage refers to as ‘White Colonial Paranoia’
– In times of war – interning of enemy ‘Aliens’
• WWI – Germans, Austrians, Turks
• WWII Germans, Italians, Japanese
– In context of the ‘War on Terror’
• Political interning of Australian Muslims.
– Constant attacks upon core elements of Muslim identity; Hijab, Mosques, Cultural Practice
– Notable examples; Bronwyn Bishop, Peter Costello, Alan Jones, Andrew Bolt, Fred Nile
– Intense pressure to conform to ‘Australian Values’
– Up to 2010 Australian Prime Ministers have found it necessary to elevate the Burqa to the level of national
significance.
Implications for Identity
– A wide range of responses to these attacks and challenges, particularly from young Australian born Muslims;
ranging from highly innovative and constructive efforts to shape representations of Islam in Australia through to
terrorist plots.
4. Background
• The vast majority of research has failed to adequately engage with these developments and seek
to understand both their causes and potential implications
• Many studies concerned with media and government representations of Islam
• Many studies have sought to understand developments in Muslim community attitudes and
perceptions through large scale questionnaires and surveys
• The rise of the field of ‘Counter Terrorism’ related research views young Muslims as either ‘at risk’
of succumbing to radical messages or as a threat of committing acts of terrorism.
• Very few studies have utilised in-depth methodology and research design to engage with
Australian Muslim populations
• Fewer studies still have sought to focus upon young Australian Muslim men participating in forms
of ‘Active Citizenship’ that challenge both negative Government and Media focus as well as the
radical Islamist narrative.
• Many of these young Muslims have shown themselves to be at the fore front of shaping and
developing Islam in the Australian context.
• Issues of culture, power and Identity have been overlooked in seeking to understand Australian
Muslims.
5. Why Bourdieu?
• The search for a comprehensive in-depth and holistic framework for understanding the influences
upon how young Australian Muslims form their identity (source of meaning)and choose to express
it through action.
• Understanding the impact of social influences upon identity construction and expression
specifically required understanding the complex and intertwined relationship between culture,
power and identity.
Bourdieu sought to create a critical sociology that exposed power relationships produced
and reproduced through cultural resources, processes and institutions. (Swartz 1997:52).
Taken as a whole, Bourdieu’s theoretical project is a critical scientific analysis and
explanation of the social influences of what people do and why they do what they do, and
of how what they do contributes to the reproduction of these very social influences.’ (Rey,
2007:40)
• Bourdieu as ‘Socio-Analysis’.
• The Weight of the World served to illustrate the power of Bourdieu’s theoretical and
methodological approach and the possibilities it offered for both overcoming symbolic violence in
the research process and the ability to reveal comprehensive and new insights into individuals.
6. Theoretical Application
• Core concepts derived from A Theory of Practice
– Field
– Capital
– Habitus
Also related concepts including
– Doxa, Enjeux (stakes), Symbolic Power, Symbolic Violence, Reflexivity
• Bourdieu asserted that the core concepts of his work were to be ‘put together empirically and in a
systematic fashion.’
• The correct utilisation of the theory requires that individual components must be understood as
inter-related and essential to the correct form and functioning of their counterparts.
• Concepts inform both methodology and analysis
• A Theory of Practice utilised alongside Manuel Castells Identity Typology
– Aids in categorising Identity Expression
• Legitimising Identity
• Project Identity
• Resistance Identity
7. Methodology
• Content Analysis of Work / Activities
• Case Study Approach
– Two Case Studies examining active and engaged citizenship; active participation in the field of cultural
production and power
– One Case Study examining extreme disengagement and active participation in the field of cultural destruction
and power
• Allows points of comparison and difference
• Semi-Structured In-depth Interviews (Case Study One and Two)
– Recruitment: Snowballing
– Emphasis upon overcoming symbolic violence
• Interview Structure: Examined a wide variety of fields and structures that may have influenced interviewees:
• Islam
• Family
• Education
• Employment / Unemployment
• Media
• Government Institutions (Healthcare, Welfare, Police, Other)
• Cultural Influences including Music, Television and fashion
• These, accompanied by comprehensive analysis would provide deep insights into fields participated in, levels and
type of capital possession and embodied dispositions and ‘Habitus’ of interviewees.
• Approached as broad topics rather than specific questions
• Time intensive and required intuitive follow-up with pertinent questions
• Often the fluid nature of conversations led to numerous topics being brought up completely out of intended
sequence – these had to be followed up whilst the momentum allowed.
8. Methodology
• Interviewees were invited to share research findings to ensure they continued to feel
they have a stake in the work.
• Analysis of ASIO listening device and telephone intercepts (Case Study Three)
– Access granted by the Honourable Justice Bongiorno, the judge who presided over the 2008
trial
– Provided a valuable contrast case study to the first two case studies: Young Muslims
engaged in the field of cultural destruction, seeking the symbolic annihilation of their enemies
– Transcripts related to key potential influences utilised in case studies one and two
– Benefit of zero presence of symbolic violence by the researcher – all conversations were
recorded secretly without any knowledge of the individuals concerned.
• Total Evidence Base for the Project
• 26 hours of Interviews with 6 case study interviewees
• 12 Hours of Interviews with Community members including a Muslim Community
Psychologist, Women's organisation representative and political representatives
• 4000 Pages of ASIO of listening surveillance device and telephone intercepts
• 9 Months of Court Transcripts from the Benbrika Trial
11. Active Project Identity: Hip Hop
THE SILENT TRUTH
I can feel ya eyes on me but I ain’t in the wrong,
Keepin to yourself scared my beard hides a bomb
I’m a peaceful kinda guy come sit with us
Hating on me coz television got ya brainwashed
Pick up a book and educate your mind
And next time you see me we’ll greet with Salaams
‘All we ask is that we’re all treated equally
And that my name won’t make you scared to speak to me’
Silent Truth is the best track because it encapsulates what we’re about and
you can relate it to everyone, even those coming from Muslim viewpoint or
an Arab viewpoint, and the struggles that we face, anyone can sort of listen
to that track and say oh yeah, I face that kind of trouble.
Jehad Debab – The Brothahood
12. Methodology: Information Revealed
Consciously Stated
Influences Interviews Revealed
• Passionate young working and middle
class men.
• Heavily influenced by Tasawwuf Islam, an
emphasis upon spirituality and love.
• Introduced to Islam as an act of love and
praise from a young age.
• Introduction to YMA – an organisation
founded on principals of community
service and ‘giving’ .
• Powerful positive influence of female role
models and wives on both the practice of
their religion and in lives more generally .
• Relationship with police reveals significant
cultural capital possession and trust.
• Experiences of discrimination and bullying
only built a level of resilience – not
alienation suggesting high levels of self
esteem and cultural capital.
• Experiences of unemployment dealt with
head on.
• The educational cultural capital possessed
by Jihad particularly important to their
success.
• Powerful Australian and Western cultural
influences upon their identity.
13. Example Content Derived from Interviews
She [mum] didn’t really tell us to pray, she told us what she knew, like she knew to fast, so we
fasted…And she really installed that sort of love for us and, but without authoritatively putting it on
us, she didn’t hit us or anything like that so it was appealing.
Jehad
I think it’s the nurturing that the YMA gave us as young people and it takes us back to that spiritual
development again. When you actually teach someone and help practice, you plant a seed in
fertile soil, no matter what you do, it wasn’t forced upon, you come back…
Ahmed
I went to a really dodgy primary school... That primary school basically I missed out on grade one,
two and three because of it. I was alone at the school, I was picked on at the school. The grade
sixes would grab me and the preps would bash me… I had no friends, no nothing. No matter
what I did I couldn’t and even the teachers were really bad then, like the teachers would call me
camel...
Moustafa
I wanna be a cop because I wanna help not just Muslim youth but youth in general…because a lot
of kids they don’t like police officers and imagine if I was a cop and I was also in the Hip Hop
group they’d look at me and go ‘man he’s a rapper, and he’s a police officer. He’s cool’… It might
motivate other kids to think differently and say man, I wanna be a cop and we need more ethnic
cops in Australia…
Timur
15. Active Project Identity: Public
Intellectual
Critical of Mainstream Discourse about Muslims
It is increasingly unthinkable that Australian Muslims may be chaotically diverse human
beings. They do not have mundane struggles and aspirations. And certainly they have no
spiritual dimension. Rather, they are an inhuman abstract; a singular political entity;
nameless and faceless, except where punctuated by the image and speech of some
villainous radical caricature who shoots rapidly to symbolic infamy. No longer do Muslims
subscribe to a rich and varied religious tradition or indeed any religious tradition at all. They
are imagined as members of a political party called Islam; one that, in Australia at least, is
perpetually in opposition.
Aly, W. 2007a. Muslim Communities: Their Voice in Australia’s Anti-Terrorism Law and
Policy
Critical of Muslim Insularity
Where your identity is one of differentiation, any attempt to look for points of connection, to
build bridges, very quickly becomes an act of treachery. Accordingly, it is now common in
the Muslim conversation for ideas and arguments to be dismissed on the grounds not that
they lack merit, but that they are ‘Western’, and hence automatically a corrupting, ‘un-
Islamic’ influence.
Aly, W. 2007b. People Like Us: How Arrogance is dividing Islam and the West. Sydney.
16. Waleed Aly: Key Influences
Consciously Stated
Influences Interviews Revealed
• Understated, softly spoken
• Consciously sought to distance himself as a
spokesman for Australian Muslims
• Brother the most powerful singular influence
• Whilst classifying himself as a traditionalist,
Waleed was likely very strongly influenced by
the group YMA due to his brothers involvement
and early participation.
• Islamic influences were almost entirely Western
Muslim scholars of Maliki background that were
also actively seeking to shape Islam in the West
• The centrality of white masculine hegemonic
values to Waleed’s identity development:
through Wesley College, key mentors
(journalism, academic, political), musical tastes
and interest in popular culture.
17. Example Content Derived from Interviews
He [Waleed’s Brother]made sure that I knew that I was meant to be praying five times a day and
he’d give information… it wasn’t really authoritarian or anything… I think he just saw that I wasn’t
going to get a huge amount of religious education from mum and dad so it was gonna be him that
did it..
Waleed
…it’s not uncommon I would suggest for people who have had some exposure to Islam through
YMA, you know, to, they may not be that practicing in their sort of adolescent years or whatever
but they’ll usually come back, even if they don’t come back to YMA, they usually come back and
be a pretty serious Muslim because they kind of had that seed planted, at least that was the case
when I was you know, a kid.
Waleed
I remember him well. That class was in Adelaide… He was for most of the class the most
obnoxious participant. He just wasn’t satisfied with anything you say and he dug further and
further. And when he was satisfied you would know it. And if he wasn’t you would know it as well.
And I’ve found from the trainings we do here and there that those usually end up as the best
participants.
Nurudeen
Lemur
Legal training, legal education and also the process of working as a lawyer has been really
important in my own development, it was one of the key things that informed my transition
religiously. It teaches you an intellectual rigor and an intellectual method that has been really
important in informing the way that I go about forming my views of the world and then articulating
them.
Waleed
19. Neo-Resistance Identity: Terrorism
Summary of the Prosecution Case:
The cause to be advanced by terrorist action was said to be the belief –taught by Benbrika and
accepted by members of the organisation – that they were under a religious obligation to pursue
violent jihad against the kuffar (non-believers).
Supreme Court of Victoria 25 October 2010 Summary of Judgement: BENBRIKA & ORS v THE
QUEEN [2010] VSCA 218
Prosecution based upon proving membership of a terrorist organisation:
• Members referring to themselves as the jema’ah and taking oath of allegiance to Benbrika
• Specific roles and responsibilities
• Instruction in pursuit of violent jihad as a religious obligation
• Collection of extremist Islamist doctrinal and operational material
• Collection of money and undertaking of illegal activities
• Expenditure of money on the group activities
• Team building and bonding sessions
20. The Benbrika Group: Key Influences
• Analysis of backgrounds of individuals prior to joining the Musallah is yet to be undertaken.
• Broadly speaking, low levels of education, manual workers and with a past involving
nightclubbing, substance use, low level criminal activity and violence.
• Almost all had highly supportive families that remained in disbelief that their children would
be involved.
I believe he's an angel because he's a very clean man. Why they accuse� him? He
never go to the pub, never do anything. Why they say he's a� fundamentalist?
Why?“
Aimen Joud’s
Father
• Benbrika a key and pivotal influence upon the young men of the group
• Textual and motivational material derived from analysis of listening device and telephone
intercepts almost entirely foreign and devoid of historical context.
• Includes sources such as Ibn Tamiyah (13th Century), Abu Mus’ab al-Suri, Tibyan
Publications and Jihadi propaganda material.
21. Example Content
On Rewards for participation in Jihad
Ahmed Raad: What do you mean its for nothing? [foreign] you know if if even if you did go to prison for this, every day your’re in prison,
what is it, everyhour? When you do it in Allah’s cause. How much is it? Its better than what? Sixty years or something.
Aimen Joud: nuh nuh
Ahmed Raad: Sixty months or something?
Aimen Joud: “[inaudible] one day and night in Allah’s cause is better than rising for sixty months”
Ahmed Raad: Praise is to Allah
Aimen Joud: “Or Sixty Years”
Ahmed Raad: You know this, this in your garage in Allah’s cause. Every, every day and night it’s in here, praise is to Allah, the reward
you’re getting.
Listening Device Transcript 10 September 2004 23:19:10 – 23:41:00
p.p.195
On Jihad
Benbrika: ''If they kill our kids we kill…[inaudible / meeting]…little kids.'‘
Merhi: ''The innocent ones?'‘
Benbrika: ''The innocent ones. Because he kills our innocent ones.'‘
Merhi: ''And we send a message back to 'em.'‘
Benbrika: ''That's it.'‘
Merhi: ''Eye, eye for an eye.'‘
Benbrika: ''So the jihad exists here.'‘
Merhi: ''Yeah, I want in on everything. If there is anything, if there is anything, you talk to me all right.''
23. Analysis and Preliminary Findings
• This is as far as research has reached to date.
• Next step to identify broad themes: similarities and differences
• The practical application of Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice and
methodological approach have yielded a mass of evidence and new
insights into social influences upon young Australian Muslim men.
– The approach goes well beyond ‘Islam’ or ‘discrimination’ as the only influence upon
young Muslim men worth understanding.
– Provides rich insights into the dynamic interplay between Islam in its many forms and
wider Australian structural and cultural influences upon its practice.
– It provides deep insights into both current and future developments in Australian
Islam.
• I welcome your feedback both now and at any time as to how the
approach may be improved or refined.
