Author: StephenPihlaja

I was really pleased to present the findings from the project for teachers at Ark Victoria Academy in Small Heath last month as well as talking about the power of community-engaged outreach at St George’s Church Edgbaston. In both places, I spoke about the power of personal narrative in talking about one’s faith both to majority Christian and majority Muslim audiences. I’m always struck at these events by how similar we all are, regardless of our faith, in the goals that we share for ourselves and those around us.

A key part of this project has been finding a way to communicate the findings in a simple and clear way. I’m really happy to everyone who gave feedback about the findings that led to this infographic. I’m really excited to finally be able to share this and would like to make it available to anyone who would like.

I have ordered 30 posters and 1400 postcards to be distributed in places where people might benefit from this message. If you would like to receive a poster to display, or any postcards, please use this form.

I will be speaking to the Aston Stylistics Research Group at the beginning of next month (1 Dec, Thursday, at 16:00 UCT), as the project comes to a close. The talk will be online, so all are welcome! The talk is called ‘In a bit of a muddle’: Positioning and storylines in talk about religious identity and here is the abstract:

This talk focuses on religious identity in talk about community life in Birmingham, particularly in contexts where people of different religious beliefs are regularly in contact with one another. Drawing on interviews and fieldwork undertaken during an 18-month, AHRC leadership fellowship entitled ‘Language and Religion in the Superdiverse city’, I will discuss how self and other positioning emerges in talk about religious identity and how these positionings draw on storylines about different religions and ways of being religious in the contemporary world. Analysis will show religious identity is constructed using categories, particularly in contrast and comparison to other categories, and how the use and understanding of those categories can shift depending on contextual factors. I will argue that a more dynamic understanding of religious identity has consequences for how religious belief is understood in society and how people of different religious faiths and backgrounds come to understand one another and people of no faith in diverse settings.

As I sat in a conference a couple of weeks ago, reflecting on the time I’ve spent over the last year gathering data, I was suddenly filled with a strange panicked thought: why did I interview my participants? The initial answer is obvious: because that’s what you do when you’re trying to find things out about people and what they think — how else are you supposed to know if you don’t ask them? The data I’ve gathered has been more or less what I needed. People have told me about their experiences and as I’ve analysed the data, patterns are starting to emerge in how people talk about their experiences and there have been commonalities that are worth noting.

At the same time, the panic I felt, was the result of wondering, but what if people just told me things that were limited to what I asked about. What if there was something else that I needed to investigate, something beyond the limited questions that I asked and much more important than whatever it was I asked about.

This panic passed relatively quickly as I thought about it more: I had spent a lot of time with people just chatting, visiting them in their organisations and places of worship, having cups of coffee and tea with them, reading the literature, reflecting on my own experiences living in the city for eight and half years. Of course, there would always be limits to the data I collected, but the questions I asked were oriented toward the things I was investigating and the answers have revealed important and noteworthy findings.

But I do still wonder if I’ve put too much focus on the interviews as ‘data’ because they are something concrete. Unlike my notes, I treat them as more objective in some way, like they have a kind of truth that’s more tangible. I wonder what other data I could have collected, and what other things I might collect when I expand this project in the future: the recordings of worship services or websites or communications between people in a community. The interview transcripts are certainly not bad and any kind of data that is collected is oriented towards the collector in some way. There’s no magic reality where the researcher can be a kind of Emersonian transparent eyeball perceiving the world. That said, I think it’s important to treat these transcripts as only one part of the project and go back to those original notes I made when I met with people informally and give them another look in light of what I know now at the end of the project.

The Mormon church in Harborne, which opened up as a vaccination centre last year, has a sign on the front that says ‘Vistors Welcome’. I have never been to a Mormon church before and have been thinking about attending a service there if I have a free Sunday morning one day. I’ve wondered though if I actually am welcome, if I can just rock up in my normal street clothes and take part — that’s the funny thing about language, sometimes when you say something, people might think the exact opposite thing. If you’re saying everyone’s welcome, it suggests that some people must think that they’re not welcome, and they probably have a reason for thinking that.

It’s a difficult issue when it comes to religious faith: on whose terms are you welcome and how can you change perceptions when people don’t feel welcome. I first understood the power of welcome in Islam when I went to Istanbul with my family in 2011. Everyone in Istanbul was kind to us and I initially was incredibly uncomfortable: strangers picking up my children, the street sweeper telling me and my wife what a great mix our kids were. But after the initial shock, we were overwhelmed with how much genuine love was shown by everyone. I remember saying at the time that if only you could get the most hardcore anti-Muslim racist in the States and take them to Istanbul, if they could have some ice cream and Turkish Delight and wander in the markets, there would be no way they could stay racist. How could you hate Muslims when you felt that sort of love from everyone around you.

Last Friday, I attended the University of Birmingham’s community Iftar, one of the things I have most been looking forward to since Covid shut it down for two years. I didn’t go with anyone, and after the speeches in the Great Hall were done, I wandered outside to the tarps put out on the Chancellor’s Court, under the lights strung up and Old Joe, and sat by myself. In a couple of minutes, two other men, who didn’t know each other or me, and who had both come alone, sat with me, and we broke the fast together, and they invited me to come pray with them. After the prayers, we ate and talked about our lives and the challenges of living a meaningful life. It was completely serendipitous and true display of Islam as I understand it, where people of all different walks of life sit and share food together.

I left to walk home and wondered again about welcome, thinking these days not about American racists, but other people I would have loved to have seen at the Iftar. I had felt an overwhelming feeling of welcome, of course, but then again I’m a cis-gender, straight, white man: would I have felt the same way if I was gay and with my partner? I could ask the same question about St Peters, the local Anglican church that I attend as a hopeful atheist: the doors are open, and anyone is welcome, but not everyone feels welcome. Welcome is, of course, something that must be both offered and felt. I love the language of inter-religious dialogue, the focus on building bridges and finding common ground, but I wonder if it simplifies the more difficult things that we need to talk about. We say all are welcome, but does everyone feel welcome. Welcome is something you need to pursue, not just offer, and it’s probably going to require everyone being a little bit (or a lot) uncomfortable.