Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Dedication
- Some terms and definitions
- Introduction: Race, racism and social work
- one Rethinking anti-racist social work in a neoliberal age
- two The growth of xeno-racism and Islamophobia in Britain
- three The catalysers: ‘black’ professionals and the anti-racist movement
- four “Same, same, but different”
- five Antisemitism and anti-racist social work
- six Anti-Roma racism in Europe: past and recent perspectives
- seven In defence of multiculturalism?
- eight Social work and Islamophobia: identity formation among second and third generation Muslim women in north-west England
- nine Institutionalised Islamophobia and the ‘Prevent’ agenda: ‘winning hearts and minds’ or welfare as surveillance and control?
- ten ‘Street-grooming’, sexual abuse and Islamophobia: an anatomy of the Rochdale abuse scandal
- eleven My people?
- twelve Twenty-first century eugenics? A case study about the Merton Test
- thirteen The role of immigration policies in the exploitation of migrant care workers: an ethnographic exploration
- Conclusion: Race, racism and social work today: some concluding thoughts
- Bibliography
- Index
eight - Social work and Islamophobia: identity formation among second and third generation Muslim women in north-west England
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Dedication
- Some terms and definitions
- Introduction: Race, racism and social work
- one Rethinking anti-racist social work in a neoliberal age
- two The growth of xeno-racism and Islamophobia in Britain
- three The catalysers: ‘black’ professionals and the anti-racist movement
- four “Same, same, but different”
- five Antisemitism and anti-racist social work
- six Anti-Roma racism in Europe: past and recent perspectives
- seven In defence of multiculturalism?
- eight Social work and Islamophobia: identity formation among second and third generation Muslim women in north-west England
- nine Institutionalised Islamophobia and the ‘Prevent’ agenda: ‘winning hearts and minds’ or welfare as surveillance and control?
- ten ‘Street-grooming’, sexual abuse and Islamophobia: an anatomy of the Rochdale abuse scandal
- eleven My people?
- twelve Twenty-first century eugenics? A case study about the Merton Test
- thirteen The role of immigration policies in the exploitation of migrant care workers: an ethnographic exploration
- Conclusion: Race, racism and social work today: some concluding thoughts
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In this chapter Laura Penketh takes up the vexed question of Muslim women's right to wear the Hijab. It seems bizarre, at one level, that the right of women to wear a headscarf has become such a ‘controversial issue’ in Britain and across much of Europe. However, this has become a coded issue – of Islam's apparent incompatibility with Western norms and evidence, apparently, of women's particular oppression within Islam. Based on her research with women in the north of England Penketh addresses these issues by listening to the voice of Muslim women and their perspectives on Islamophobia and racism in modern Britain.
Introduction
Social work is a profession that is committed to the values of social justice, human rights, poverty alleviation and anti-oppression (International Federation of Social Work 2007) This requires that social work academics and practitioners are aware of the roots of oppression and its various changing forms (Thompson 1993), and that they can implement these insights, acting in ways that are anti-oppressive, anti-discriminatory and just (Penketh 2000).
Yet the problem for social workers is that these requirements are often difficult to operationalise in a shifting, complex and ‘messy’ world. How do we combine, for example, a commitment to anti-racism, cultural awareness, and opposition to women's oppression when working with families whose country of origin and cultural practices are different to our own? How do we avoid a vapid cultural relativism or, alternatively, a crude imposition of ‘Western’ values and modes of living onto service users who live their lives differently to ours? These are not abstract questions but complex and sensitive issues for all practitioners. These questions are made more difficult as a result of changing socio-political contexts and the many ways in which they impact on perceptions of culture, religion and ‘race’.
This has clearly been the case over the past decade with regard to understandings and perceptions of Islam in Western Europe. The launch of the ‘War on Terror’ by the US Government in the aftermath of the attack on the Twin Towers on 11 September 2001, led to the questioning of the presence of both Islam and the Muslim presence in ‘Western’ societies; a development that included interventions by media commentators, academics and politicians, as well as right-wing political fanatics on the streets.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Race, Racism and Social WorkContemporary Issues and Debates, pp. 151 - 166Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2013