The Research

Abstract

This chapter sets out our approach to the research. It outlines our collective engagement in the research development processes from its inception through to the analysis and writing. We begin by providing a rationale for the study that locates it within wider contemporary concerns and global debates. In a policy context that describes multiple ‘hopes’ and ‘fears’ associated with youth, Muslim youth and the Global South, our empirical focus was on accessing youth voices. Our intention was to resist and ‘trouble’ the homogenised western accounts of Muslim youth through in-depth explorations of the various narratives they used to name and claim their own sense of belonging through their engagement with nation, religion, ethnicity and gender. Our case study approach in four different national contexts was designed to capture the plurality of youth voices. Spanning three regions of the globe—South Asia, Middle East and West Africa—the country cases, Pakistan, Senegal, Nigeria and Lebanon, are all predominantly Muslim states in the Global South. They each have distinctive colonial histories that have shaped their emergence as nation states, the narratives of belonging of their citizens and youth’s articulations of identity. In each location, we engaged in a series of focus group discussions, in most cases with the support of local youth researchers. This approach was informed by our concern to privilege youth voices and to listen to the multiple different ways in which youth themselves construct and perform their identities. The details of the research in each context and reflections on its limitations are explored further in subsequent chapters.