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Dialogical Constructions of a Muslim Self Through Life Story Telling

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Dialogical Constructions of a Muslim Self Through Life Story Telling DIALOGICAL CONSTRUCTIONS OF A MUSLIM SELF THROUGH LIFE STORY TELLING Marjo Buitelaar I feel like a Muslim, but considering what they say about Islam on television, or how teenage Muslim girls talk about it, I real- ize that I am a awed Muslim … I have a Dutch translation of the Koran, but it feels odd to read the Koran in Dutch; I do not feel at home in that translation. Some- how the Dutch language is not suitable to transmit the ornate style of the Arabic text. In response to the question what being a Muslim means to her, this is how Boushra, a 35 years old Dutch Muslim psychiatrist of Moroccan descent positions herself in the dialogue with various collective voices in Dutch society that speak out about Islam.1 As elsewhere in Europe over the last decade, Islam has become the dominant marker of identity attributed to Dutch citizens of Muslim descent.2 Since identity is always constructed in 1 Boushra (pseudonym, as all other names of my interlocutors that are mentioned in this chapter) is one of the twenty ve women who participates in a longitudinal life story project that I started among daughters of Moroccan migrants in the Netherlands in 1998. The second round of interviews were conducted in 2008. 2 Besides 9/11 and the subsequent ‘war on terror’, several local incidents have inuenced the dominant Dutch discourse on Islam. In 2002, the liberal-rightist politician Pim Fortuyn, who spoke in very negative terms about Muslims, was killed. Even though the murderer was an environmentalist of Dutch background, Fortuyn’s death is often associated with the per- ceived danger posed by the presence of fundamentalist Muslims in the Netherlands. In 2004, the Dutch lmmaker Theo van Gogh was killed by a radicalised young Muslim man of Moroc- can descent. Van Gogh was the producer of the lm Submission, which contains shots of koranic texts written on a naked female body. The lm-script was written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, at the time a member of the Dutch parliament. Submission was part of what she called her ‘jihad’ against Islam’s oppression of women. More recently, the new-rightist Party for Free- dom (PVV) won 15,5% of all votes in the 2010 national elections and played a crucial role in supplying the governing parties with enough support in parliament to pass laws. Leader of the PVV is Geert Wilders, whose agrantly anti-Islam statements receive much media attention. 144 marjo buitelaar dialogue with others, Dutch Muslims cannot ignore the dominant Western discourse on Islam. Responding to claims of inclusion and exclusion made by the various social groups and categories they identify with in society plays a signi cant role in the construction of their religious identity. Particularly the diasporic condition of Muslims with a migration background brings into sharp relief the sense of constantly negotiating between past and present, tradition and modernity, and self and other (Bhatia 2001: 57). The current fashion among young Muslim girls of Moroccan or Turkish background to wear a headscarf, for example, shows parallels to the emancipatory “Black is Beautiful” trend in the 1960s and 1970s. In variation to the Big Afro hair style expressing “I am black and I am proud,” girls who wear a headscarf state “I am Muslim and I am proud.” It would be a mistake, however, to reduce the meaning of Islam to Mus- lims to identity politics only. While wearing a headscarf has become fash- ionable, the practice also points to a desire to express or experience piety. Rather than a political issue, to most Muslims Islam is rst and foremost a personal source of comfort, inspiration, and a guideline for ethically sound conduct. In this chapter I will argue that the study of religious identity con- struction from a biographical perspective by using the analytical concept of the ‘dialogical self’ allows one to investigate both the intrinsic value of religiosity to Muslims and its contextualized meanings in terms of iden- tity politics. I will do so by reecting on excerpts from interviews with two Muslim women who participated in my research project on the inheritance of migration in the life stories of highly educated daughters of Moroccan migrants to the Netherlands. 1. Dialogical Self Theory According to dialogical self theory, self-conceptions are produced by a dynamic interplay of so-called ‘I-positions’ and ‘voices of the self’. The self is dialogically constructed in two interrelated ways. First of all, individuals have the capacity to look at themselves through the eyes of others. Secondly, as embodied actors they comment on diferent ‘versions’ or dimensions of themselves. From each temporally and spatially speci c position that one occupies, one enters into (internal) dialogues with one’s other selves, that is, the selves that arise in diferent positions. In addition, one enters into (imaginary) dialogues with signi cant others who are related to one in these positions. The self is therefore never entirely ‘here’, but always extends to other localities (Hermans 2001)..
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