In Producing Islam(s) in Canada: On Knowledge, Positionality and Politics (University of Toronto, 2021), Amélie Barras, Jennifer Selby, and Melanie Adrian bring together twenty-nine interdisciplinary scholars of all levels to engage and reflect on how Islam and Muslims in Canada has been studied from the 1970s to the present moment. Originating from a workshop, the contributors were asked to reflect on diverse approaches to the study of Islam and Muslims in Canada, especially as it centers gender, race, religion, class, and much more. For instance, the chapters include discussions on politics of research funding, hypervisibility of studies of the hijab, surveillance by the state, and issues integration and assimilation in the Muslim diaspora. The collection also includes wonderful interviews with senior scholars in the field, such as with Jasmin Zine, Karim H. Karim and Katherine Bullock. This edited volume is an important contribution to the field of Islam and Muslim studies in Canada, as it provides a necessary introspective survey of the state of the field, while attending to regional diversities of Muslim communities and spotlighting a range of disciplinary approaches to the study. The scholarship here will be of interest to any scholar and student who is thinking of Muslim presence in the global west, while chapters that attend to methodological reflections, such as on positionality, will be particularly insightful for those who reflect on methods and will be great pedagogical tools to utilize in methods courses.
Shobhana Xavier is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Queen’s University. More details about her research and scholarship may be found here and here. She may be reached at shobhana.xavier@queensu.ca. You can follow her on Twitter via @shobhanaxavier.
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