Introducing Seaside Town Muslims: Eastbourne Mosque History and Politics
The majority of British Muslims live in cities such as London, Leicester, Birmingham and Bradford—and academic research thus far has reflected a city and post-manufacturing town emphasis. This paper investigates the as yet undocumented history and mosque politics of Muslims living in the small town of Eastbourne, East Sussex, using participant observation and unstructured and semi-structured interviews. Firstly, I conceptualise my case study group by highlighting some differences found in a small town in terms of the origins of its Muslims, their ethnic heterogeneity, and residential spatial distribution. Secondly, I explore mosque politics in terms of mosque planning, public reactions to mosque rebuilding, and mosque management issues.
Mosques and the Public Space: Conflict and Cooperation in Bradford
While there is still some evidence of conflict over the planning and building of mosques in Britain, in this article I demonstrate that this is not currently the case in Bradford. Having first considered issues relating to the status and significance of mosques in Britain, and then the institutionalisation of Islam in Bradford, I suggest that this absence of mosque conflict has much to do with the social and political implications of a densely populated ‘Muslim’ inner city. However, the absence of conflict over mosques in Bradford does not mean that the pervasive Islamisation of the inner city is not an issue; quite the reverse. After riots involving youth of Pakistani–Muslim heritage, a dominant discourse has emerged focusing on ethnic and religious ‘self-segregation’ and the need for ‘community cohesion’. Moreover, commentators have identified mosques, and the religious leadership and education they provide, as a part of the problem. My article examines why this might be so and the extent to which Bradford Council for Mosques, and one particular mosque in Bradford, have been able to engage Muslims in cooperative relationships with the public space.
Religion, planning and the city
This article examines the debates that have arisen in relation to the establishment of sites of worship by Britain's minority religious groups. Frequently, the buildings of non-Christian religious communities have been portrayed as `alien' and incommensurate with surrounding urban landscapes, and there are numerous cases in which such opposition has had a decisive bearing on the success or failure of plans to develop such sites of worship. However, beyond this geography of exclusion, we have begun to detect a changing attitude in the ways such buildings are positioned in relation to their local urban landscapes. In several cases, new sites of worship have been represented as welcome contributions to the production of multicultural, ethnically diverse cities. In these instances, public bodies and institutions have co-opted such buildings into broader urban policy agendas. Local religious communities have themselves played a defining role in this shift, having become astute actors in the political sphere, adapting to the processes involved in gaining planning permission and financial support. Evidence of this changing geography is provided through case study material from the town of Preston in Lancashire and the city of Leicester in the East Midlands, both in England.