Finding Mecca in America: American Muslims and Cultural Citizenship

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the experience of Muslim identity in the United States. It explores the various encounters between Muslim life and American forms. It pays particular attention to the processes of cultural settlement of Muslims and their post-9/11 citizenship practices. Arguing that there has been a growing disjuncture between the nation and the state since 9/11, I ask how Muslims respond to this disjuncture which threatens to leave them outside the definition of the nation while still remaining inside the state. How do they remake boundaries so as to include themselves in the nation? Focusing on the relationship between religious identity and cultural citizenship, my multi-site ethnographic research explores various boundary works: the process of boundary-crossing where Islam is translated into another language, culture and even geography and the process of boundary-shifting where Muslim demand for recognition takes the form of multiple citizenship practices such as civil rights advocacy, interfaith activism and Muslim ethnic comedy. My dissertation also explores the ways in which 9/11 has encouraged the formation of a distinct American Islam.