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Boundary-Making As a Destigmatization Strategy: The Boundary-Making as a Destigmatization Strategy: The Case of Albanian and Bosnian Muslims in Canada by Ivana Previšić A thesis submitted to the School of Anthropological and Sociological Studies in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Ottawa Ottawa, Ontario, Canada November 2018 © Ivana Previsic, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 Abstract This thesis studies the experiences of Albanian and Bosnian Muslim immigrants in Canada in the post-9/11 period. It draws upon a boundary-making framework and employs qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate the destigmatization strategies of Balkan Muslims, as well the national and cultural repertoires that enable and facilitate their utilization. The study yields several important findings. The quantitative findings show that Albanian and Bosnian Muslim immigrants in general show lower levels of attachment to religion compared to other Muslim immigrants. Also, many members of these ethnic groups appear to have resorted to the strategy of distancing and/or disidentifying from Muslim identification and/or faith in favour of identifying as irreligious as a way of coping with rising Islamophobia in Canadian society. The qualitative findings show that the move towards distancing/disidentification is due to a dissonance between the cultural repertoires of the meaning(s) of “Muslim” in participants’ homeland versus that of the host society. Discursively, the process of distancing/disidentification occurs mostly by drawing religious and, relatedly, moral and value boundaries from other, mostly non-European and racialized Muslims. Importantly, despite having been exposed to instances of Islamophobia, participants overwhelmingly reported that their communities have not been significantly affected by anti-Muslim sentiments. I argue that the Albanian and Bosnian Muslims’ lack of religious signs, bolstered by their “whiteness” and society’s general unfamiliarity with Muslims and the Balkans, have greatly contributed to the perceived lack of religion-based discrimination. This study thus demonstrates that Islamophobia is to a significant extent an issue of racism, and that, relatedly, “race” continues to be a weighty marker of differentiation in Canadian society, where skin colour and appearance function as a religious sign. ii Keywords: Muslims, Canada, Albanians, Bosnians, Balkans, Islamophobia, racism, whiteness, multiculturalism, religion, identity, identification, boundaries, repertoires, external categorization. iii Acknowledgments Firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Dr. Philippe Couton for the continuous support during my PhD studies, for his patience, motivation, and immense knowledge. His guidance helped me in all the time of research and writing of this thesis. I could not have imagined having a better advisor and mentor. Besides my supervisor, I would like to thank the rest of my thesis committee: Dr. Elke Winter, Dr. Abdoulaye Gueye, Dr. Srdjan Vucetic, and Dr. Djordje Stefanovic, for their insightful comments and encouragement, but also for the hard questions which incented me to widen my research from various perspectives. I thank my fellow colleagues Adina Madularea, Marie-Michèle Sauvageau, Anke Patzelt, Marie-Hélène Eddie, Daniel Burnier, Mihai Basarah Sarbu, Daoud Nour Ahmed, Maxine Cléroux, and Pascale Demontigny-Gauthier for their support and stimulating discussions. I am grateful to my friends Blanka Miletic and Anna Ebel-Lam for their love and encouragement. Last but not the least, I would like to thank my family. I am grateful to my husband Ameer for his support, and my children Leo and Kai for being the inspiration for everything I do in life. The completion of this thesis would have been impossible without the support of my parents, Vinka and Antun, and my brother Mihajlo. They made immense sacrifices in support of my academic endeavors. This thesis is dedicated to them. iv Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. iv Table of Contents ................................................................................................................ v List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... ix Chapter 1 ............................................................................................................................. 1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Theoretical Premise of the Study .................................................................................... 3 Thesis Outline ................................................................................................................. 5 Chapter 2 ............................................................................................................................. 8 Background: Histories, Narratives, Mythologies................................................................ 8 Site One: Canada............................................................................................................. 8 Multiculturalism ...................................................................................................................... 8 Canada’s Race Relations ....................................................................................................... 10 Canada’s Religious Landscapes ............................................................................................ 12 Islamophobia in Canada ........................................................................................................ 13 Site Two: Muslims in the Balkans ................................................................................ 19 Bosnian Muslims .................................................................................................................. 20 Albanian Muslims ................................................................................................................. 23 Albanians in Kosovo ............................................................................................................. 26 Albanians in Macedonia ....................................................................................................... 27 Europe, Balkans, Muslims .................................................................................................... 28 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 31 Chapter 3 ........................................................................................................................... 33 Theoretical Foundations and Conceptual Framework ...................................................... 33 Emotions and Interests: Weber on Social Action ......................................................... 33 Weber on the Formation of Ethnic Groups ................................................................... 36 Barth on the Formation of Ethnic Groups..................................................................... 41 Goffman: Presentation of Self and Stigma ................................................................... 44 “Identities” and “Groups” or Groups and Identities? ................................................... 50 Internal vs. External Boundaries, Identifications, and Categories ................................ 54 Boundary-Making: Recent Frameworks ....................................................................... 61 Boundaries: Definitional Challenges ............................................................................ 62 Boundary-Making and Strategizing: Agency vs. Structure .......................................... 63 v Typologies of Boundary-Making Strategies ................................................................. 68 Boundary-Making and Stigma ...................................................................................... 69 Boundary Work in Practice ........................................................................................... 73 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 80 Chapter 4 ........................................................................................................................... 81 Methodology ..................................................................................................................... 81 Criteria for Participant Selection .................................................................................. 82 Process of Recruitment ................................................................................................. 84 Profile of Participants ................................................................................................... 87 The Interview Process ................................................................................................... 88 Validity ......................................................................................................................... 90 Relationship with Participants and Reflexivity ..................................................................... 91 Data Analysis
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