Resisting the stereotype of 'Muslim-Australian'

For young people of the first and second generation, their sense of belonging and identity is formed through a complex mix of widely dispersed family and friends, locally based dense social groups of ethnically diverse peers, and an Australian community of Turkish migrants who keep in close touch with the older generation and who stand in for the extended family left behind in Turkey.

It is clear that for these young people, cultural or ethnic identity is much stronger than religious identity. Although they are articulate about preserving their heritage and language, these traditions are seen to be firmly Turkish, with cultural rather than religious significance.

Perhaps because of Turkey’s fierce historic commitment to national secularism young Turks have no difficulty in separating their religious beliefs or non-beliefs from their Turkish cultural traditions and in seeing the traditions that they value as being Turkish rather than Islamic. It is quite clear that these young people, while acknowledging their Muslim heritage, have no interest in, or commitment to, a larger national, supranational or global community of Muslims.

Research with Turkish Australians has shown that the discourse around Muslim-Australians which constructs a singular, hybrid category on the basis of residence and religion is actively resisted by at least some of those very people to which it has been ascribed.

A complex mixture of affiliations, networks and personal relationships exists alongside a critical analysis of mainstream media and a selective consumption of both national and overseas media sources. This reflects a sophisticated understanding of any attempt to assign a singular identity to a complex and diverse group.

Despite being surrounded by media production practices which continuously simplify complexity, individual reading and viewing practices negotiate and deconstruct such simplicity to produce more subtle, nuanced and meaningful social identities among those whose lived experience continues to fail to be reflected in the mainstream media.