Making Muslimness: Race, Religion, and Performance in Contemporary Manchester

Making Muslimness explores how British Muslims navigate the UK's sociopolitical and religious tensions through performance in everyday life. Drawing on nearly two years of interdisciplinary research in Manchester during the late 2010s and early 2020s, this book examines diverse contexts—from devised theatre projects to public processions to the aftermath of the 2017 Manchester Arena attack. It distinguishes between Islam as a religion and Muslimness as a performed identity, arguing that Muslimness emerges through negotiation based on individual relationships to Islam's social construction. Through theatre-making, ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and media analyses, the book deconstructs the racialized British assumption equating Muslim identity with Asian heritage. Instead, it reveals a resilient British Muslim counterpublic that builds solidarity, challenges harmful narratives, and creates socially just artistic spaces. The work bridges theatre and performance studies with anthropologies of Islam, Britain, and youth, while addressing intersections of Muslimness with race, gender, sexuality, age, and Britishness. This book is an essential reading for scholars and students in performance studies, religious studies, sociology, and cultural studies interested in contemporary Muslim identities, performativity, and the politics of belonging in multicultural Britain.