Introduction

Abstract

This chapter provides the rationale and outline for research and analysis on Muslim youth in four different national contexts. In a global scenario of social uncertainty and increasing fear, youth and Muslim youth in particular have been the focus of intensified attention. Our aim within the research has been to ‘trouble’ universalised and homogenised constructions of Muslim youth through investigations of the diverse ways in which they produce, articulate and perform their identities within the local contexts of their everyday lives. This introductory chapter sets out how our poststructural and postcolonial understandings inform the theoretical and methodological approaches to the research in four contrasting national contexts—Pakistan, Senegal, Nigeria and Lebanon. As a precursor to in-depth theoretical discussion later in the book, we provide an initial elaboration of identity as fluid and dynamic, replete with histories of place and claims of belonging. Our research involved nuanced engagements with youth in face-to-face encounters with each other. The fine-grained, multi-layered analyses of these diverse youth narratives focused on nation, religion, ethnicity and gender as intersecting axes of belonging. Overall, this chapter outlines the ways this book is offered to ‘trouble’ the universalistic and homogenised ways that youth and Muslim youth are often (mis-) represented and (mis-) understood.