Current Sociology

Please welcome our Sociologist of the Month for September 2023, Uzair Ahmed (Department of Sociology and Human Geography and Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX), University of Oslo, Norway). His article for Current Sociology Reflections on racialisation’s impact on research: Insights from a study of Muslim radicalisation in Norway is Open Access.

Uzair Ahmed

Could you please tell us about yourself?

U. Ahmed: I work as a research fellow at the Center for Research on Extremism at the University of Oslo and as a lecturer on diversity and social inequality at the Department of International Studies and Interpreting at Oslo Metropolitan University. My research centres on racialisation, identity construction, radicalisation and violent extremism. In my work, I often employ cultural sociological theory in combination with approaches from race and ethnicity studies to elucidate meaning-making processes on both individual and relational levels. In my doctoral work, completed at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo, I have focused on how and why Muslim men in Norway adopt and reject political violence. Drawing on interviews and participatory observations, I argue that the adoption and rejection of political violence is not merely an internal process but a process that involves the mainstream. In their meaning-making about adopting or rejecting political violence, Muslim men in Norway denounce or accept the racialised image of the Muslim in Norwegian society.

How did you come to your field of study?

U. Ahmed: As a student, I was intrigued by how some of the literature on radicalisation fail to provide a nuanced understanding of the context in which the process of radicalisation takes place but rather has a narrow focus on theology and often individualises and pathologises ways into violent extremism. This interest eventually led me to pursue a PhD in Sociology at the University of Oslo.

What prompted you to research the area of your article, “Reflections on racialisation’s impact on research: Insights from a study of Muslim radicalisation in Norway”?

U. Ahmed: During my training as a sociologist, I was encouraged by my professors, particularly by my advisors, to be critical when analysing the data, to adopt a sociological lens, and to not limit myself to the narrow focus in the radicalisation literature. This encouragement, along with my training in sociological theory and methods by some of the most renowned sociologists in Norway, provided me with fruitful concepts and perspectives to understand my data, including an explicit awareness that the researcher is a part of and influenced by the social and cultural context they study.

What do you see as the key findings of your article?

U. Ahmed: The key finding from my article is that racialisation influences interactions in field research in multiple and multifaceted ways, even when the research is being conducted by a scholar with a minority background and among participants with whom they share a racial background.

What are the wider social implications of your research in the current social climate?

U. Ahmed: My findings illustrate and further emphasise, as others have done before me, that power is embedded in knowledge production. Therefore, scrutiny of a transparent and vulnerable account of scholars’ social positions, although difficult, is necessary to not reinforce the power relations in the current sociocultural and political context.

How do you think things will change in the future?

U. Ahmed: I do not like to predict the future. However, as a scholar who focuses on the racialisation of Muslims, I am worried about the explicit and implicit ways in which the public discourse about Islam and Muslims and the cultural image of Muslims in Norway influences young Muslims’ perceptions, interactions and opportunities.

Do you have any links to images, documents or other pieces of research which build on or add to the article? Or a suggested reading list?

U. Ahmed: My work is inspired by W.E.B Du Bois’s theory of double consciousness. Regarding qualitative methods and reflexivity, I build upon the work of Viktor M.Rios, Patricia Hill Collins and J.M. Eason. I build upon the work of Nasar Meer, Tariq Modood, Steve Garner, Saher Selod, Arun Kundnani, and others, about the racialisation of Muslims. See references:

Abbas MS (2019) Producing ‘internal suspect bodies’: Divisive effects of UK counter-terrorism measures on Muslim communities in Leeds and Bradford. The British Journal of Sociology 70(1): 261–282.
Brubaker R (2013) Categories of analysis and categories of practice: A note on the study of Muslims in European countries of immigration. Ethnic and Racial Studies 36(1): 1–8.
Collins PH (1986) Learning from the outsider within: The sociological significance of black feminist thought. Social Problems 33(6): s14–s32.
Eason JM (2017) Privilege and peril in prison town studies: Power and position in fieldwork encounters. Sociological Focus 50(1): 81–98.
Garner S, Selod S (2015) The racialisation of Muslims: Empirical studies of Islamophobia. Critical Sociology 41(1): 9–19.
Hussain Y, Bagguley P (2012) Securitised citizens: Islamophobia, racism and the 7/7 London bombings. The Sociological Review 60(4): 715–734.
Kundnani A (2009) Spooked! How not to prevent extremism. Institute of Race Relations. Available at: https://www.kundnani.org/wp-content/uploads/spooked.pdf
Mamdani M (2002) Good Muslim, bad Muslim: A political perspective on culture and terrorism. American Anthropologist 104(3): 766–775.
Meer, N. (2013) Racialisation and religion: race, culture and difference in the study of antisemitism and Islamophobia. Ethnic and Racial Studies 36(3): 385-398.
Meer N (2019) W. E. B. Du Bois, double consciousness and the ‘spirit’ of recognition. The Sociological Review 67(1): 47–62.
Meer N, Modood T (2009) Refutations of racism in the ‘Muslim question’. Patterns of Prejudice 43(3–4): 335–354.
Rios VM (2015) Decolonising the white space in urban ethnography. City & Community 14: 258–261.