Post-conflict Community Peacebuilding Practices among Faith Practitioners in Pakistan, Kenya, and the Philippines

Global Studies Quarterly (Journal of the International Studies Association) 

This article examines the community peace building practices of Muslim faith practitioners (MFPs) across three post-conflict settings: Mindanao in the Philippines, Mandera County in Kenya, and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan. Drawing qualitative on interviews analysed through thematic analysis, the article spiritual advances capital as a framework for understanding the moral and theological distinctive authority that capability MFPs to function as effective meso-level peacebuilders.

A Forced Union: Exploring the Consequences of India's Removal of Jammu and Kashmir's Special Status 

Nations and Nationalism

This article adds to academic literature interested in two core questions: What happens to residents as a result of an annexation? And how do aggressor states maintain control over an annexed territory where there is a history of insurgency and mobilisation for independence? It applies Paul Morland's framework of demographic engineering to explore these questions.

This article discusses findings from a four year multisite study on how migrant youth in Melbourne, Toronto and Birmingham experienced and responded to racist encounters within the workplace. It highlights how regardless of time and place, experiences are embedded within colonial racial hierarchies, across the three contexts. Adding to literature on young people and agency, we argue that participants’ decisions to respond to racism are nuanced and thought through, weighing up the 'costs' of challenging racial stereotypes for maintaining relationships with colleagues from the white majority, and the impact this may have for career progression.

Applying Erving Goffman's theory on Stigma, this article challenges deficit-based narratives that characterise minority community networks as providing ‘low’ social capital, instead demonstrating their potential for providing protective and developmental spaces. It discusses how actors exhibit agency in developing transcultural capital to navigate discriminatory environments, as structural barriers persist despite individual adaptive strategies. The research contributes to understanding how marginalised youth negotiate stigma and stereotyping while highlighting the continued reality of systemic discrimination for career progression.

This article advances conceptual debates regarding ascribed and subscribed identity in valuable ways and informs methodological improvements for representation within data collection systems. It discusses findings from a study exploring survey categories. It applies Roger Brubaker's writing as a framework to explore the inclusion – and exclusion – of identity categories within official data collection exercises, given several communities can be amalgamated as one.

The National Census of Population is conducted every 10 years and produces the most comprehensive set of statistics about Muslims living in the United Kingdom. Yet, despite the census data’s utility, research identified concerns on how such statistics can be misconstrued, due to a widespread normalisation of Islamophobia within British society and the media.

Contemplating official categories: Is the devil in the detail?

Radical Statistics

Why do categories become obsolete? The 2001 National Census of Population included, for the first time since 1851, a category on religious affiliation.  This article considers how the meaning attached with becoming an official category has shifted over time, just as collective identity markers are argued to increase and decrease in the salience they are afforded by those who they are meant to represent. 

Islamic schools in the United States and England: Implications for integration and social cohesion

Social Compass

Debates over faith-based schools have resurfaced in recent years, due largely to an increase in Islamic schools in the West and concerns regarding their role vis-a-vis social cohesion. Such debates typically occur in the public and political realms, with less academic attention to the issue. This study addresses this gap by focusing on Islamic schools in the US and England.  The findings indicate that attending Islamic schools does not necessarily translate into greater levels of religiosity. 

Multicultural Realities: The Everyday Experiences of Migrant Youth in Melbourne, Toronto and Birmingham 

Journal of Intercultural Studies

Drawing on empirical data from Australia, Canada, and England, this paper investigates how migrant youth engage with multiculturalism through the lens of transcultural capital. Employing a comparative framework, we examine how these young individuals interpret, experience, and mobilise overlapping multicultural discourses in their everyday lives. By centring the lived experiences of migrant youth, we shift the analytical focus from abstract ideals to what we term ‘lived multiculturalism’, the practical enactment of multicultural values in daily interactions.

Islamic Universalism or Ethno-nationalism? Exploring identity salience within a Kurdish migrant community

Kurdish Studies

This article examines identity salience among members of a Kurdish Muslim migrant community in England. The study, in contrast to previous research on the Kurdish diaspora, focuses on recently arrived migrants predominantly from Iraqi Kurdistan. In-depth interviews highlight how ethnic repression within sending nations results in greater politicisation of ethnicity - the identity of persecution - and in turn salience over all others.

Ethnic desegregation and ‘resegregation’ in northern English schools  

Ethnicities 

This article discusses findings on inter- and intra-ethnic friendship choices among students within three schools characterised by varying ethnic composition and levels of diversity. The findings demonstrate how presenting ethnic minority concentrations as self-segregated or resegregated can mask the everyday realities of students. Through using students’ own accounts of negotiating such challenges, this article adds to literature on homophily, by understanding of young peoples’ experiences of multi-ethnic school settings. 

Dialogue in a rapidly changing world: Practitioner assessments of the potency of intercultural dialogue 

Journal of Dialogue Studies

In 2008 the Council of Europe Ministers of Foreign Affairs set out a new framework for its member states known as Intercultural Dialogue (ICD) which was promoted as a more potent way of connecting communities (Lee, 2016). However, critics claim it is unclear how the approach differs from previous frameworks and how ICD contributes towards unequal platforms for exchange and can reinforce exclusion. This paper examines such concerns by exploring practitioners’ understanding of the concept.

The Ethnic Dimension of Internal Migration in Great Britain using Migration Effectiveness and Spatial Connectivity  

Journal of Ethnic & Migration Studies

Using Census Special Migration Statistics, this paper explores variations in the propensity to migrate within country, the effectiveness of net migration in redistributing  populations, and the connectivity between places that results from ethnic migration. By decomposing the net migration balances of London boroughs the paper reveals different spatial processes of decentralisation and dispersal as well as centralisation when comparing ethnic groups.

Exploring internal migration in Birmingham by ward concentration and deprivation

Migration Letters

This paper explores internal migration, within Birmingham, as well as migration to Birmingham from other Local Authorities in the UK. It employs Location Quotients to measure ward concentration and the Multiple Index of Deprivation to measure socio-economic disadvantage. It provides analysis and reflection on the relationship between migration, faith group concentration and deprivation. The findings demonstrate how  migration trends differ by socioeconomic disadvantage and group clustering. 

The Everyday Transnational Practices of Migrant Youth: A Transcultural Perspective 

Journal of International Migration and Integration

Transnationalism is part of broader globalisation processes and raises important questions in relation to migration, identity, and the very nation-state itself. Using comparative insights from  qualitative and quantitative empirical findings from the UK, Australia and Canada, this paper argues that transnational practices, within an increasingly interdependent and fluid global context, challenges the hyper-securitised discourse around citizenship, the singularity of political allegiance and identification.

Missing from the ‘minority mainstream’: Pahari-speaking diaspora in Britain  

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

Pahari speakers form one of the largest non-European diasporas in Britain. Despite their size and over 60 years of settlement, the diaspora is shrouded by confusion regarding official and unofficial categorisations as a collective with a shared ethnolinguistic memory. This has had implications for the recognition of Pahari within mainstream minority language provision. The article explores why Pahari has remained largely absent within discourse on minority languages in Britain. 

The Abrogation Two Years On: Consequences for Jammu and Kashmir 

Coventry University

This research paper provides a brief overview of the significance of Articles 370 and 35A; and why their abrogation is problematic for the future of Jammu and Kashmir. This is followed by examples of accounts in which the experiences of local people from both the Jammu province and the Kashmir province were recorded, in order to understand the ground realities of the abrogation and annexation of the state. It then provides an overview of some of the key changes that have occurred within the state since August 5th 2019.