Religious students stories of not belonging on campus Professor Jacqueline Stevenson j. stevenson@leedsmet. ac. uk
Belonging is a multifaceted concept. ◦ Relates to feelings of connectedness, attachment to other people, places, or modes of being ◦ More than need for simple social contact: active processes of social contact and interaction; develops shared understandings of who ‘we’ are (Judith Butler); we need to ‘matter’ ◦ Rooted in time, place and space: ‘ontological belonging’ (Miller) is ‘a sense of ease or accord with who we are in ourselves [and] a sense of accord with the various physical and social contexts in which our lives are lived out’ (p. 220). ◦ Arises from everyday practices and events within specific social milieu. Lack of belongingness: feelings of social isolation, alienation, and loneliness, increases in anxiety and depression; decreases in cooperation and self-control
Context: religious students Prevailing presumption: belonging and fitting-in (or exclusion, rejection and ‘othering’) relates solely to: ◦ ◦ ◦ gender (women) race (non-white) age (mature learners) class (working) disability Outside of this there is uniaxiality of experience for everyone else. Emerging evidence: religious students also experience difficulties with ‘fitting in’ on campus. National Union of Students (2011) and ECU (2011): Up to 30% victims of a religiously-prejudiced incidents Jewish students: institutional racism, xenophobia and threats of violence students in Christian Union societies: criticism and censure in attempting to undertake legitimate religious activities ◦ Muslim students: victims of surveillance and monitoring. ◦ ◦
Issues Data on staff/student religion not systematically collated Religious students are a less easily identifiable group than those from class, gender or ethnic backgrounds Difficult to agree a consensual definition of religion/religious Religion not a relational system, but an affiliation category that can be divested or strategically shaped Strong academic commitment to the secularity of higher education
The research In terms of UK educational policy-making considerations of religious identity have been primarily centred on: ◦ The relative merits of secular versus faith schools ◦ The rights to freedom of religious expression (gender segregation. . ) ◦ The role of education in enhancing community cohesion and combating religious extremism Few studies exploring the experiences of religious students; absence of studies means that we know little about ◦ Whether religion and higher education are at odds with each other ◦ How this plays out on the ‘secular’ campus ◦ How the university experience informs students’ religious, or other, beliefs or practices ◦ How these students are accepted, or not, by their non-religious peers, or by those from religions different to their own ◦ How specific institutional contexts interact with religious activities ◦ The effect this may have in terms of organisational policy and practice
Aims and analysis To explore the ways in which ‘religious students’ participate socially and academically in student life; stories they tell of their experiences in higher education Transcripts from: Narrative interviews with 15 UK Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh UG students; 41 transcripts Phenomenological interviews with 6 overseas doctoral students (Chinese, Libyan, Brazilian, Indian, American, Omani; Christian, Muslim) Analysis of the ‘significant stories’ of their lives Thematic analysis: belonging (drawing on May, 2013) 1. 2. 3. 4. Everyday belonging Cultural belonging Relational belonging Sensory belonging
Everyday belonging ‘One of the ways in which a sense of belonging can emerge is if we can go about our everyday lives without having to pay much attention to how we do it. Conversely a disruption in our everyday environment can make us feel uprooted’ (May, 2013, p. 89) For many of these students: ◦ Everyday world structured by power relations ◦ Everyday world as problematic ◦ Tensions between the ordinary and the extraordinary
Everyday belonging Everyday world structured by power relations Everyday world as problematic Tensions between the ordinary and the extra-ordinary ◦ So like we were I this lecture hall and they started to show this film about abortion. Like we didn’t know we were going to see it. It made me feel absolutely sick. And I just had to sit there and try not to watch it. . . It went against everything I stood for but I didn’t feel able to speak (Ruth, White British, Working-class, Female, 18, Christian, UG) ◦ And I wanted to call him (supervisor) ‘Pete’ because , you know, I’m a friendly sort of person but I could see it made him really uncomfortable so I went back to calling him ‘Doctor’ (Zahiya, Omani, Middle-class, female, 40 s, Muslim, Ph. D) ◦ There’s lots of waking me up in the morning coming in drunk. . . They bang around the flat and smoke even though they aren’t supposed to and there’s loud music. . . (Tony, White British, Middle-class, Male, 18, Christian, UG) ◦ I didn’t know where anything was, nothing, not where to live, how to get around, who to go to for help, where I could buy anything; and not a single person helped, no-one, not anyone (Amatullah, Libyan, Middle-class, female, 20 s, Muslim, Ph. D) ◦ This lecturer was talking about Easter and was trying to be all friendly and said ‘I can’t believe they can’t remember the day they nailed the guy up’. And there was this silence from the rest of the class, like an intake of breath (Tony, White British, Middle-class, Male, 18, Christian, UG)
![Cultural belonging At the heart of any negotiation or competition that ensues between [such]](https://present5.com/presentation/1c18acf6cee5129707a341571eb279d1/image-9.jpg "Cultural belonging At the heart of any negotiation or competition that ensues between [such]")
Cultural belonging At the heart of any negotiation or competition that ensues between [such] groups is the question of who has the right to make claims over how ‘we’ do things – that is, who ‘really’ belongs (May, 2013, p. 98) For all the students: ◦ ◦ Contested belongings Drawing boundaries Multiple belongings and hybrid cultures Politics of belonging
Cultural belonging Contested belongings ◦ How can they say ‘yes come here we want people of all different faiths and religions and beliefs and we are happy to have you all’ but then when you are here it’s like there’s nothing. So you can be a quiet Muslim, a silent Muslim, but please don’t want us to support you being a real Muslim (Imran, Pakistani heritage, Middle-class, Male, 18, Muslim, UG). Drawing boundaries ◦ I have nothing to say to them. I sit by myself during lectures; I sit by myself during the breaks. No one is horrible to me but I feel they look at me as if I was from a different planet (Amneet, British Asian, Middle-class, 32, Sikh, UG) Multiple belongings and hybrid cultures ◦ I don’t want to feel different. I am Pakistani but I’m also British and I want to fit in. I wish people would just accept me for who I am, look past my skin colour, see the real me. I wish people would stop seeing the barriers (Imran, Pakistani heritage, Middle-class, Male, 18, Muslim, UG). Politics of belonging ◦ It’s not a complete silence when I walk into the room but it feels like it. Like they were all talking about something and then they stop and it’s a horrible feeling, like you are deliberately being excluded from their lives; (Simon, White British, Middle-class, Male, 18, Christian, UG)
Relational belonging Belonging is created through establishing a sense of identification ◦ ‘Out-grouping’: constructing a group boundary between ‘we’ and ‘them’; ‘Othering’ ◦ Strategising for acceptance and belonging; recognising the self in others; ‘in-grouping’
Relational belonging Physical ‘out-grouping’ ◦ I’d rather meet other UK students but if never happened; I tried for ages and then I just gave up because I would rather have friends than no friends so now I just socialise outside of the university through the (other university in the city) society because there I can feel at home ( Mei, Chinese, Middle-class, Female, 20 s, Christian) ◦ I’ve nothing against any other students I just wouldn’t want to mix with them. . . All my friends are Jewish. It might sound stupid or naïve but that’s how I like it. I am rejecting the wider world by living here but that’s my choice. It’s my life (Dinah, White British, Middleclass, Female, 18, Jewish) Emotional ‘out-grouping’ ‘In-grouping’ ◦ [On Black African International students ] The kind who have hassled their way into the country and are putting themselves through university. They are single minded and opinionated; rich Africans whose parents are part of the elite and part of the problem. . . (El -Feda, Black British-African, Middle/working-class, Male, 33, Muslim) ◦ I’ve realised now that they can do more than grunt and they have realised I am more than just old. I can have a conversation with them, they are able to help me with the academic side of things which sometimes I am completely out of my depth with, like plagiarism stuff and then can get help from me. Like boyfriend advice: ‘don’t get married!’ (Mandy, White British, Working-class, Female, 38, Christian) ◦ You have to really work hard at your relationships with your supervisors; they have to learn to trust you (Carolina, Brazilian, Middle-class, Female, 20 s, Christian)
Sensory belonging Belonging is not merely a state of mind but is bound up with being able to act in a socially significant manner that is recognised by others (May, 2013, p. 142) ◦ Belonging as embodied experience Place is experienced as a sensuous, embodied and emotional geography that we come to know through our senses’ (May, 2013, p. 138) ◦ Emplaced selves ◦ (lack of) Belonging to place ◦ Place, power and inequalities
Sensory belonging Belonging as embodied experience ◦ When I was at university in India I was like everyone else…. clothes, language, customs, I fitted in. But here it is different (Amneet, British Asian, Middle-class, 32, Sikh) ◦ They want you here; they go out and say ‘come, come’ we want you; they when you are here you are just ignored. I remember my first few days. t was as if I was a ghost (Amatullah, Libyan, Middle-class, female, 20 s, Muslim, Ph. D) Emplaced selves/rootedness ◦ I’m Pakistani, living in England, I’m studying [here] and living in Manchester, I have my family there, friends here, there is home, there is the course…. it’s as if I am torn into lots of pieces and although all of it is me, none of it is (Imran, Pakistani heritage, Middle -class, Male, 18, Muslim). (lack of) Belonging to place ◦ Like I’ve just given up now and do all my socialising though X University. They have got a massive Islamic Society, with loads going on all the time. . . ( Aisha, British Pakistani, Working-class, 18, Muslim) Place, power and inequalities ◦ I got really, really upset one night. They’d come back drunk again and in the morning the place was just a mess, rubbish everywhere and people sleeping in the living room. . . I honestly don’t think that if I was Muslim…[and] complained about them drinking and smoking and having sex where I was living they would be so dismissive. They would recognise that as a legitimate part of my faith (Tony, White British, Middle-class, Male, 18, Christian)
Strategising Passing Avoidance Resistance and confrontation Othering ‘Charm and disarm’ Emotional disengagement Physical disengagement
Some overall findings Emotion permeates the academy ◦ For some the experience of being valued, needed, important or ‘indispensable’ (Anant, 1966) to a place ‘saturated with meaning and intention’ (Crossley (2001, p. 283) took place almost exclusively outside of the university ◦ For others their first year was marked by a series of rejections, challenges and frustrations, resulting in feelings of isolation and otherness, loneliness and disappointment ◦ Lack of belonging Trying to belong Being ‘between belonging’ The loneliness of not belonging Fundamental in how privilege produced and reproduced ◦ ‘Othering’ of religious students Hiding of religious identity to enable them to better fit in and ‘conform’ Turning away from the institution; dropping out Silencing of voices: ignored; regarded as having little place in a modern day secular institution; aligned with terrorism and fundamentalism ◦ Inequitable student experience
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