In her ongoing effort to illuminate the experience of Muslims in the West, York Professor Haideh Moghissi has recently produced her second book on the subject, Muslim Diaspora in the West: Negotiating Gender, Home and Belonging.

Released in December, the volume of essays by scholars from both sides of the Atlantic explores issues of race and ethnicity, culture, media, gender and migration.

The collection is edited by Moghissi, associate dean external of York’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, and Halleh Ghorashi, a professor at VU University Amsterdam.

In previews, London-based scholars say the essays “illuminate a rich mix of issues that shape and define the everyday experiences of diasporic Muslims,” address “some of the egregious stereotypes used about the Muslim diaspora” and show how “homogenization of diverse communities may serve political expediency but has a negative effect on the quest for meaningful integration.”

Moghissi, who teaches women’s and equity studies at York, has written the introduction and contributed one essay – “Changing spousal relations in diaspora: Muslims in Canada”. Other essays look at Muslim youth culture in Europe, radicalization of Muslims in Sweden, discrimination against young Muslim French women, and home and belonging for Moroccan-Dutch Muslims.

The essays grew out of a four-year international research project, "Muslim diasporas: Heightened Islamic identity, gender, and cultural resistance". Started in 2006, the project involved scholars in Canada, France, Sweden, Britain and the Netherlands and was funded by the Ford Foundation.

Moghissi is the author of Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism: The Limits of Postmodern Analysis, released in 1999 and still considered timely and relevant. It was translated and reprinted in 2010 by a South Korean publisher. In 2009, she published a monograph, Diaspora by Design: Muslim Immigrants in Canada and Beyond, co-authored by York political science professors Saeed Rahnema and Mark Goodman.

Republished courtesy of YFile– York University’s daily e-bulletin.