Young Muslims and Everyday Political Practice: A DIY Citizenship Approach

[Extract] This chapter considers what a ‘DIY citizenship’ approach can offer to analyses of the everyday political practices of first and second generation youth of Muslim migrant communities who are outside both radical and mainstream politics. We argue that the experiences of these youth raise interesting questions about political practice and citizenship for both youth studies and migration studies in the context of changing opportunities for youth engagement and expression, and generational shifts in the multicultural politics of representation. Youth citizenship studies has seen a move towards a broader conceptual framework that considers how activities such as cultural production and consumption, personal and local networking, and work on the self-function for young people as forms of political participation. Further, in super-diverse, multicultural countries such as Australia, we also see shifts away from a traditional focus on ethnic community representation and claim-making to efforts to understand how the multiplicity and fluidity of cultures enable less categorical forms of political identification and expression, especially for younger people. However, it is only recently that these frameworks have been applied to the circumstances of young Muslims of migrant background in non-Muslim majority countries. In this chapter we outline how a DIY citizenship approach relates to migrant background Muslim youth who are frequently regulated for appropriate forms of both youth and ethnic participation. We consider how it has been taken up amongst scholars researching Muslim youth in different contexts, and suggest how it might be developed for future use.