Joseph M. Tinney Phd Thesis
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INTEGRATION AND MUSLIM IDENTITIES IN SETTLEMENT: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF GERMANY, THE NETHERLANDS AND SWITZERLAND Joseph Millar Tinney A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St Andrews 2010 Full metadata for this item is available in St Andrews Research Repository at: http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2067 This item is protected by original copyright This item is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence i Title Page Integration and Muslim identities in settlement. A comparative study of Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland. A thesis submitted to the School of International Relations in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Joseph Millar Tinney March 2010 University of St. Andrews ●●● ii Declaration I, Joseph Millar Tinney hereby certify that this thesis, which is approximately 80 000 words in length, has been written by me, that it is the record of work carried out by me and that it has not been submitted in any previous application for a higher degree. I was admitted as a research student in February 2006 and as a candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in May 2007; the higher study for which this is a record was carried out in the University of St Andrews between 2006 and 2010. Date: 21st September 2010 signature of candidate I hereby certify that the candidate has fulfilled the conditions of the Resolution and Regulations appropriate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of St Andrews and that the candidate is qualified to submit this thesis in application for that degree. Date: 21st September 2010 signature of supervisor iii Embargo In submitting this thesis to the University of St Andrews I understand that I am giving permission for it to be made available for use in accordance with the regulations of the University Library for the time being in force, subject to any copyright vested in the work not being affected thereby. I also understand that the title and the abstract will be published, and that a copy of the work may be made and supplied to any bona fide library or research worker, that my thesis will be electronically accessible for personal or research use unless exempt by award of an embargo as requested below, and that the library has the right to migrate my thesis into new electronic forms as required to ensure continued access to the thesis. I have obtained any third-party copyright permissions that may be required in order to allow such access and migration, or have requested the appropriate embargo below. The following is an agreed request by candidate and supervisor regarding the electronic publication of this thesis: Embargo on electronic copy for the same fixed period of 5 years on the following ground(s): publication would be commercially damaging to the researcher, or to the supervisor, or the University; Date: 21st September 2010 signature of candidate signature of supervisor iv Abstract I adopt an interpretive methodology through which I investigate the becoming of Muslim identities in three national integration discourses. I analyse the meanings of integration in abstract, in context and through texts across contexts, and working within a broadly critical constructivist approach, I seek to show how integration discourses have an underlying security complex which explains how they come to be framed with Muslims in mind. To analyse integration I outline a new generic concept of settlement which I refer to as habilitation and which means enabling or endowing with ability or fitness. I then argue for an analytical separation of habilitative strategies, models and approaches, and thus remove integration from its generic descriptive status to one of strategy, model or approach. This I argue is justified in the discursive distinctions made in every-day language and meaning. I then investigate three broad habilitative models: multiculturalism, integration and assimilation. My primary data has been gathered in interviews with individuals acting as representatives of Muslim communities - Imams, organisation leaders, political activists and factory workers – corporate and societal actors such as Trade Unionists, Church representatives and state elites – policy advisers and integration officers. Muslim interviewees emphasised widespread use of distortion and mis-identification. I have defined such distortions as synecdoche. This is a two way process in which the individual is held responsible for the whole and in reverse direction, the whole being held responsible for individual action. The power of synecdoche to compress or expand Muslim identities is distortive and serves to reinforce the alterity of Muslims. In addition I identify another layer of othering which I call ulteriorisation. This involves placing identities under suspicion and is accomplished through a range of aspersive renderings – ambiguous loyalties, secularity, enclaving, underclass formation, and anti-integrationism. Ulteriorisation is understood to feed into broader securitisation of communities, society and polity. In conclusion I look at possible research directions and finish by emphasising that the integrity of Integration will be judged by the willingness of parties to negotiate and the quality of voluntarism and solidarity these processes produce. v Table of Contents Title Page .................................................................................................................................................. i Declaration ...............................................................................................................................................ii Embargo .................................................................................................................................................. iii Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................................... v Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................................... ix CHAPTER ONE Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 Research Questions and some conceptual tools ................................................................................ 1 Conceptual Threads ............................................................................................................................. 2 Integration and identities .................................................................................................................... 3 The Key message ................................................................................................................................. 4 Thesis Map .......................................................................................................................................... 4 CHAPTER TWO Essentialisation and the construction of Islam............................................................. 10 Constructing Islam ............................................................................................................................. 10 Muslims and their identities.............................................................................................................. 13 Integration ......................................................................................................................................... 15 Institutional approaches ................................................................................................................... 19 Institutionalisation of Islam ............................................................................................................... 20 The State and Security ....................................................................................................................... 22 Integrating difference ........................................................................................................................ 30 vi Identities and the power of construction ......................................................................................... 38 The contribution of this research ...................................................................................................... 40 CHAPTER THREE Initial concepts, assumptions and commitments ...................................................... 42 Ontology, Epistemology and Methodology....................................................................................... 43 Working with live data – a constructivist grounded theory approach ............................................. 52 Of texts and connections – rendering discourse ............................................................................... 55 CHAPTER FOUR Securing co-existence - habilitation, secularism and security .................................... 57 Multiculturalism and backlash ...................................................................................................... 57 Assimilation and terminal visions .................................................................................................. 60 Integration as midpoint? ..............................................................................................................