Marife Turkish Journal of Religious Studies

Abstract

This paper examines how young Turkish Muslims in Britain construct their ethnic identity by looking at their relationships with their families, the Turkish community, the host society, and their religious attitudes and practices. The focus of this study is certainly young Turkish Muslims who have been relatively ignored in multicultural British society. By the youth, I refer to the generation who were born in or arrived in Britain at an early age, who live in two different cultural spaces, who are more open to social and cultural changes in their everyday lives — particularly through school, college, and other institutions — than their parents, and who thus construct their ethnic identities through two ‘geopolitical dimensions’: ‘inside-out’ and the ‘outside-in’. This means that the identity process is built, not just in relation to individuals’ relationships with their family, inside the community, and so on, but also in relation to outsiders’ attitudes, treatments, and perceptions. What is important to grasp here is that there is a dynamic interaction from the inside-out and the outside-in. Britain allows one to better explore the effects of these two dimensions on the ethnic identity construction of young Turks. On the one hand, it is home to many social, cultural, political, and religious organisations which are promoted by Turkish communities to circulate and strengthen their identity. On the other hand, it also enables those young people to have relations with the wider society, especially the majority group. Thus, their identity negotiations are influenced both by internal and external forces.
A review of the literature demonstrates three primary deficiencies. Firstly, the past research conducted on the issue of young Turkish Muslims’ ethnic identity in Britain is few and far between. Secondly, these studies have overlooked either the internal or external dynamics of that community which significantly influence ethnic identity construction in younger generations. Lastly, these studies, except one, are now over twenty years old. By focusing on the views, feelings, and experiences of young Turkish Muslims in Britain in relation to their families, the Turkish community, the host society, and their religious attitudes and practices, this paper aims to fill these gaps in the literature.
This article draws on semi-structured in-depth interviews with young Turkish Muslims who were born in or who arrived in Britain at an early age. Interviews were conducted in London and Bristol between 2016 and 2018 with 14 young Turks and, ranging in age from eighteen to thirty years. I also conducted unstructured interviews with 3 older Turkish people who gave information about the Turkish communities existing in Bristol. The interviews were sampled using the snowball technique, which served the purpose of accessing the participants and establishing trustworthy relations with them. To facilitate the coding of the transcripts, I used NVivo. I employed thematic analysis to identify and analyse patterns of meaning in the dataset.
The findings of the research show that the ethnic identity construction of young Turkish Muslims has taken place on a tension line that arises between their own culture and the dominant culture. Most of my young respondents are aware of their ethnic identities and the cultural, social, and religious values which are the building blocks of their identities. Their relationships with the family, Turkish community, friends, and the host society, and their religious attitudes and practices have positively influenced the construction and maintenance of their ethnic identities. In this respect, this study makes a significant contribution to the literature on the ethnic identity formation of young Turkish Muslims in Britain.