“In Britain it has been widely noted that Muslims originating from Pakistan in South Asia have in recent years stressed their Islamic identity, distancing themselves from a more neutral “South Asian” racial and cultural ascription, from a politically activist “black” self-labelling, and, most recently, from a nationalist identification as “Pakistanis”. I wish to argue here that this apparent identity shift disguises a continuing tension between different dimensions of a complex cluster of personal identities. Islam, as “high culture” to be defended to all costs, cannot suppress popular cultural traditions rooted in the South Asia and Pakistani nationalist origins of immigrants and their descendents.”
[Pnina Werbner, “Our Blood is Green: cricket, identity and social empowerment among British Pakistanis“, Jeremy MacClancy (org.) Sport, Identity and Ethnicity, Oxford, Berg, 1996]
0 comments ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.
Leave a Comment