Key Concepts

This section defines two key theoretical frameworks that shape much of the research on youth from Muslim-majority communities living in the United States: national imaginary and citizenship and belonging.

2.1 National Imaginary

National imaginary references the ways that nations construct an ideal of member­ship and community. Nations are not natural givens. They are made and remade, in part through everyday practices of nationalism that continually organize people's sense of belonging to particular nation-states (Anderson 1983/1991; Appadurai 1996; Benei 2008, 2011; Billig 1995; Calhoun 2007). Even long-existing nation­states must continually reestablish the nation, constructing a national imaginary that articulates its normative values and beliefs, along with the parameters of belonging (and exclusion). Moreover, the boundaries of national belonging are fluid, negoti­ated over time in relation to different groups of people (Anderson 1983/1991; Hall 2002; Ngai 2004; Yuval-Davis et al. 2005; Yuval-Davis 2011). Who belongs to a nation? Who is “self” and “Other?” What kinds of people are viewed as capable of being the nation's citizen-subjects? Wartime is a period during which these discur­sive constructions of the nation are re-articulated - the edges of belonging and not belonging sharpened (O'Leary 1999). However, although these edges are hardened in the face of war, they rely on boundaries that are already there.

2.2 Citizenship and Belonging

This chapter takes an anthropological perspective on citizenship as lived experience through which people negotiate “the rules and meanings of political and cultural membership” (Levinson 2005, p. 336; see also, Ong 1999; Rosaldo 1994; Yuval- Davis 2011). Young people's citizenship practices entail the myriad ways they fashion social, economic, cultural, and political belonging within and across the boundaries of nation-states.

Belonging references the affective dimension of people's sense of connection to nation and community. Yuval-Davis et al. (2005) argue that belonging is a “thicker concept” than citizenship - a social connection that is created, to some extent, through experiences of inclusion or exclusion. Even before, but especially after 9/11, youth from Muslim-majority communities living in the United States have had to carve out a sense of belonging and create bids for citizenship in relation to their broader positioning as outsiders to the US national imaginary.

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