Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Purdie-Greenaway V., Dawood M., Çoymak A., Baldeh M.
Diğer Ülkelerdeki Kamu Kurumları Tarafından Desteklenmiş Proje, 2018 - 2020
Understanding Muslim identity in America has become an increasingly difficult task in the years following the events of September 11th. As a result of these events, it became difficult for Muslim people to reconcile their American identity with their Muslim identity and anyone who was visibly Muslim or fit a certain appearance profile was met with increased discrimination and prejudice (Daraiseh, 2012). Following 9/11, being or “looking Muslim” was not only an uncomfortable space for those with that identity to occupy, but it was also dangerous and could mean facing harassment from others who began to link Islam with terrorism. With this link being perpetuated through American media, directly following 9/11 and up to the present day, Muslim Americans are hyper-aware of their religious identity (Gerges, 2003). From this general knowledge about the Muslim identity in America, we seek to understand how external factors, such as Islamophobia, affect Muslims and their motivations to conceal part or all of their religious identity. Given that being Muslim is an identity that can be concealed, choosing to conceal if possible may be a lucrative option and a form of protection for Muslims seeking to dodge discrimination and bias.
The present work hopes to extend and broaden previous research done by Michael Slepian on secrets. Much of Slepian’s work surrounds the nature of keeping secrets in general and the effects of hiding the secret away. From this, we categorized concealment as a milder form of “secret keeping,” however, we recognize the two ideas—religious identity concealment and secret keeping—are not one in the same, especially given the slightly negative connotation associated with secrets. Nonetheless, we linked secret keeping with concealment because the act of keeping some part of the self hidden is common to both and we believe that concealing one’s religious identity presents other parallels to secret keeping, such as psychological distress, based on Slepian’s work. The proposed study is exploratory and aims to understand concealment behaviors among Muslims, if they exist, and their effects of the Muslim individual in America. We will simply survey Muslim participants and ask about their identity as Muslims, their concealment behaviors, feelings of belonging within a larger Muslim community, mental wellbeing as measured through a number of items, and their engagement in collective political action.