Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-25wd4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T06:28:28.597Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Narrative and Religion in the Superdiverse City

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2024

Stephen Pihlaja
Affiliation:
Aston University

Summary

This Element focuses on how narrative is used to construct religious identity in superdiverse contexts, considering specifically how people talk about their own religious identity, and the religious identity of others. Drawing on interviews with twenty-five participants, and numerous site visits throughout the city of Birmingham (UK), the analysis focuses on how self and other positioning is used to construct religious identity in talk about beliefs, actions, and behaviours in different contexts. Additionally, the analysis shows how conflict emerges and is resolved in spaces where people of different faiths and no faith interact, and how people talk about and understand community. Finally, a model for talking about faith in diverse contexts is presented to help people find common goals and act together towards shared interests.
Get access
Type
Element
Information
Online ISBN: 9781009406994
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 09 May 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abrams, D., & Hogg, M. (2010). Social identity and self-categorization. In Dovidio, J., Hewstone, M., Glick, P., & Esses, V. (Eds.), The Sage handbook of prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination (pp. 179193). Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Al-Hejin, B. (2015). Covering Muslim women: Semantic macrostructures in BBC News. Discourse & Communication, 9(1), 1946. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750481314555262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allington, D., & Joshi, T. (2020). “What others dare not say”: An antisemitic conspiracy fantasy and its YouTube audience. Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism, 3(1), 3554. https://doi.org/10.26613/jca/3.1.42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ammerman, N. T. (2013). Spiritual but not religious? Beyond binary choices in the study of religion. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 52(2), 258278. https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12024.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anthony, L. (2021). AntConc (Version 3.5.8) [Computer software]. Tokyo: Waseda University.Google Scholar
Baker, P., Gabrielatos, C., & McEnery, T. (2013). Discourse analysis and media attitudes: The representation of Islam in the British press. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bamberg, M., & Georgakopoulou, A. (2008). Small stories as a new perspective in narrative and identity analysis. Text & Talk, 28(3), 377396. https://doi.org/10.1515/TEXT.2008.018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becci, I., Burchardt, M., & Giorda, M. (2017). Religious super-diversity and spatial strategies in two European cities. Current Sociology, 65(1), 7391.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bhatt, I. (2023). A semiotics of Muslimness in China. Elements in Applied Linguistics. Cambridge University Press. www.cambridge.org/core/elements/semiotics-of-muslimness-in-china/AB898053368AF49AC6A510385CEFB1FD.Google Scholar
Bhatt, I., & Wang, H. (2023). Everyday heritaging: Sino-Muslim literacy adaptation and alienation. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2023(281), 77101. https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2022-0058.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blackledge, A., & Creese, A. (2020). Interaction ritual and the body in a city meat market. Social Semiotics, 30(1), 124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blommaert, J., & Rampton, B. (2012). Language and superdiversity. MMG Working Paper 12–09. www.mmg.mpg.de/59855/wp-12-09.Google Scholar
Bredvik, L. S. (2020). Discussing the faith: Multilingual and metalinguistic conversations about Religion (Vol. 25). Walter de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruce, T. (2018). New technologies, continuing ideologies: Online reader comments as a support for media perspectives of minority religions. Discourse, Context & Media, 24, 5375. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2017.10.001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burchardt, M., & Becci, I. (2016). Religion and superdiversity: An introduction. New Diversities, 18(1), 17.Google Scholar
Butt, P. (2023). Feminism, theology and everyday domestic skill within a phenomenological framework: An autoethnographic reflection. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Birmingham. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/14576/.Google Scholar
Cameron, L. (2010). Metaphors and discourse activity. In Cameron, L. & Maslen, R. (Eds.), Metaphor analysis: Research practice in applied linguistics, social sciences and the humanities (pp. 325). Equinox.Google Scholar
Cameron, L. (2015). Embracing connectedness and change: A complex dynamic systems perspective for applied linguistic research. AILA Review, 28(1), 2848.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chilton, P., & Kopytowska, M. (2018). Religion, language, and the human mind. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christens, B. D. (2010). Public relationship building in grassroots community organizing: Relational intervention for individual and systems change. Journal of Community Psychology, 38(7), 886900. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.20403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, L., & Osborne, L. (2014, March 7). Islamist plot ‘Operation Trojan Horse’ to take over schools in Birmingham. Daily Mail Online. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2575759/Revealed-Islamist-plot-dubbed-Trojan-Horse-string-schools-Birmingham-self-styled-Jihad.html.Google Scholar
Clift, R., & Helani, F. (2010). Inshallah: Religious invocations in Arabic topic transition. Language in Society, 39(3), 357382. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404510000199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Creese, A. (2008). Linguistic ethnography. In Hornberger, N. (Ed.), Encyclopedia of language and education (Vol. 2, pp. 229241). Springer.Google Scholar
Creese, A., & Blackledge, A. (2019). Translanguaging and public service encounters: Language learning in the library. The Modern Language Journal, 103(4), 800814.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crystal, D. (1965). Linguistics, language, and religion. Hawthorn Books.Google Scholar
De Fina, A., & Georgakopoulou, A. (2011). Analyzing narrative: Discourse and sociolinguistic perspectives. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deppermann, A. (2013). How to get a grip on identities-in-interaction: (What) does ‘positioning’ offer more than ‘membership categorization’? Evidence from a mock story. Narrative Inquiry, 23(1), 6288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorst, A., & Klop, M.-L. (2017). Not a holy father: Dutch Muslim teenagers’ metaphors for Allah. Metaphor and the Social World, 7(1), 6585.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fadil, N. (2017). Recalling the ‘Islam of the parents’: Liberal and secular Muslims redefining the contours of religious authenticity. Identities, 24(1), 8299. https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2015.1091318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flores, N., & Lewis, M. (2016). From truncated to sociopolitical emergence: A critique of super-diversity in sociolinguistics. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2016(241), 97124. https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2016-0024.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
García, O., & Li, W. (2014). Translanguaging and education. Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Georgakopoulou, A. (2006). Thinking big with small stories in narrative and identity analysis. Narrative Inquiry, 16(1), 122130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Georgakopoulou, A. (2007). Small stories, interaction and identities. John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gholami, R. (2015). Secularism and identity: Non-Islamiosity in the Iranian diaspora. Routledge.Google Scholar
Gholami, R. (2017). The art of self-making: Identity and citizenship education in late-modernity. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 38(6), 798811. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2016.1182006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gholami, R. (2021). Critical race theory and Islamophobia: Challenging inequity in higher education. Race Ethnicity and Education, 24(3), 319337. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2021.1879770.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilroy, P. (2004). After empire. Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graeber, D. (2015). The utopia of rules: On technology, stupidity, and the secret joys of bureaucracy. Melville House.Google Scholar
Gregory, E., Choudhury, H., Ilankuberan, A., Kwapong, A., & Woodham, M. (2013). Practice, performance and perfection: Learning sacred texts in four faith communities in London. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2013(220), 2748. https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2013-0012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanks, W. F. (2013). Language in Christian conversion. In Boddy, J. & Lambek, M. (Eds.), A companion to the anthropology of religion (pp. 387406). John Wiley and Sons.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harré, R., & van Lagenhove, L. (1998). Positioning theory: Moral contexts of intentional action. Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Hobbs, V. (2020). An introduction to religious language: Exploring theolinguistics in contemporary contexts. Bloomsbury Publishing.Google Scholar
Hogg, M. (2004). Social identity theory. In Eagly, A. H., Baron, R. M., & Hamilton, V. (Eds.), The social psychology of group identity and social conflict: Theory, application, and practice (pp. 111136). American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
Housley, W., & Fitzgerald, R. (2002). The reconsidered model of membership categorization analysis. Qualitative Research, 2(1), 5983.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inge, A. (2016). The making of a Salafi Muslim woman: Paths to conversion. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, C. (2018, June 27). British white people set to become a minority in Birmingham, says report. Birmingham Live. https://bit.ly/2y5LiC8.Google Scholar
Jayyusi, L. (1984). Categorization and the moral order. Routledge/Kegan & Paul.Google Scholar
Jefferson, G. (1978). Sequential aspects of storytelling in conversation. In Schenkein, J. (Ed.), Studies in the organization of conversational interaction (pp. 219248). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-623550-0.50016-1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labov, W. (1972). Language in the inner city. University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Lytra, V., Volk, D., & Gregory, E. (2016). Navigating languages, literacies and identities: Religion in young lives. Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noronha, L. de. (2022). The conviviality of the overpoliced, detained and expelled: Refusing race and salvaging the human at the borders of Britain. The Sociological Review, 70(1), 159177. https://doi.org/10.1177/00380261211048888.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Office for National Statistics. (2022). How life has changed in Birmingham: Census 2021. www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/censusareachanges/E08000025/.Google Scholar
Omoniyi, T., & Fishman, J. A. (2006). Explorations in the sociology of language and religion. John Benjamins Publishing Company.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Owen, W. F. (1984). Interpretive themes in relational communication. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 70(3), 274287.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pavlenko, A. (2018). Sloganization in language education discourse. In Schmenk, B., Breidbach, S., & Küster, L. (Eds.), Conceptual thinking in the age of academic marketization (pp. 142168). Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Pihlaja, S. (2014). ‘Christians’ and ‘bad Christians’: Categorization in atheist user talk on YouTube. Text & Talk, 34(5), 623639.Google Scholar
Pihlaja, S. (2018). Religious talk online: The evangelical discourse of Muslims, Christians, and atheists. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pihlaja, S. (Ed.). (2021a). Analysing religious discourse. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pihlaja, S. (2021b). Talk about faith: How conversation shapes belief. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pihlaja, S. (2023). Abstraction in storytelling. Narrative Inquiry.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pihlaja, S., & Ringrow, H. (Eds.). (2023). The Routledge handbook of language and religion. Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pihlaja, S., Whisker, D., & Vickerage-Goddard, L. (2022). Categories in discourse about Church of England primary education. Religion & Education, 49(3), 292309. https://doi.org/10.1080/15507394.2022.2102876.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rampton, B., Tusting, K., Maybin, J., et al. (2012). UK linguistic ethnography: A discussion paper. www.lancaster.ac.uk/fss/organisations/lingethn/documents/discussion_paper_jan_05.pdf.Google Scholar
Richardson, P. (2012). A closer walk: A study of the interaction between metaphors related to movement and proximity and presuppositions about the reality of belief in Christian and Muslim testimonials. Metaphor and the Social World, 2(2), 233261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richardson, P., & Mueller, C. M. (2022). Contested paths: Analyzing unfolding metaphor usage in a debate between Dawkins and Lennox. Metaphor and the Social World, 12(1), 138158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richardson, P., Mueller, C., & Pihlaja, S. (2021). Cognitive linguistics and religious language: An introduction. Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richardson, P., Pihlaja, S., Nagashima, M., et al. (2020). Blasphemy and persecution: Positioning in an inter-religious discussion. Text & Talk, 40(1), 7598. https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2019-2049.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ringrow, H. (2020a). “Beautiful masterpieces”: Metaphors of the female body in modest fashion blogs. In Ringrow, H. & Pihlaja, S. (Eds.), Contemporary media stylistics (pp. 1534). Bloomsbury.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ringrow, H. (2020b). “I can feel myself being squeezed and stretched, moulded and grown, and expanded in my capacity to love loudly and profoundly”: Metaphor and religion in motherhood blogs. Discourse, Context & Media, 37, 100429. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2020.100429.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ringrow, H. (2021). Identity. In Pihlaja, S. (Ed.), Analysing religious discourse (pp. 276291). Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosowsky, A. (2008). Heavenly readings: Liturgical literacy in a multilingual context (Vol. 9). Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Rosowsky, A. (2019). Sacred language acquisition in superdiverse contexts. Linguistics and Education, 53, 100751. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2019.100751.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rumsby, S., & Eggert, J. P. (2023). Religious positionalities and political science research in ‘the field’ and beyond: Insights from Vietnam, Lebanon and the UK. Qualitative Research, 14687941231165884. https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941231165884.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rumsey, S. K. (2010). Faith in action: Heritage literacy as a synchronisation of belief, word and deed. Literacy, 44(3), 137143. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-4369.2010.00561.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sacks, H. (1992). Lectures on conversation. Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sierra, S. (2023). The epistemics of authentication and denaturalization in the construction of identities in social interaction. Language in Society, 52(4), 571594. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404522000161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soskice, J. M. (1985). Metaphor and religious language. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Soskice, J. M. (2007). The kindness of God: Metaphor, gender, and religious language. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Souza, A. (2016). Language and faith encounters: Bridging language–ethnicity and language–religion studies. International Journal of Multilingualism, 13(1), 134–148. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2015.1040023.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Staples-Butler, J. (2020). Did a Corbyn-led government pose an “existential threat to Jewish life” in the UK? Revolutionary states and the destruction of Jewish communities. Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism, 3(1), 109120. https://doi.org/10.26613/jca/3.1.47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tajfel, H. (1983). Social identity and intergroup relations. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, N., & Pihlaja, S. (2017). Young Muslims and exclusion – experiences of ‘othering’. Youth & Policy. www.youthandpolicy.org/articles/young-muslims-and-exclusion/.Google Scholar
Translation and Translanguaging (TLANG). (n.d.). https://tlang.org.uk/.Google Scholar
Valluvan, S. (2016). Conviviality and multiculture: A post-integration sociology of multi-ethnic interaction. YOUNG, 24(3), 204221. https://doi.org/10.1177/1103308815624061.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Noppen, J.-P. (1981). Theolinguistics. Studiereeks Tijdschrift Vrije Universiteit Brussel.Google Scholar
van Noppen, J.-P. (2006). From theolinguistics to critical theolinguistics: The case for communicative probity. ARC, The Journal of the Faculty of Religious Studies, 34, 4765.Google Scholar
Vertovec, S. (2007). Super-diversity and its implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 30(6), 10241054.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whisker, D., Pihlaja, S., & Vickerage-Goddard, L. (2020). Diversity and success in church schools. Grove Books.Google Scholar
Yee, E. (2019). Abstraction and concepts: When, how, where, what and why? Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 34(10), 12571265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yelle, R., Handman, C., & Lehrich, C. (Eds.). (2019). Language and religion. De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614514329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save element to Kindle

To save this element to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Narrative and Religion in the Superdiverse City
Available formats
×

Save element to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Narrative and Religion in the Superdiverse City
Available formats
×

Save element to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Narrative and Religion in the Superdiverse City
Available formats
×