The impact of Identity Politics in Challenging National Narratives: A Case-study among Canadian Muslims

Research and theories of nationalisms have underscored how national imaginaries are significantly shaped by collective identity claims-making, as well as how national imaginaries are mobilized to make claims of both inclusion and exclusion by groups in the nation. However, there has been less focus on how within a given categorical group in a nation national imaginaries are interpreted, contested, and mobilized. Just as inter-group contests have been shown to impact on national narratives, I propose that intra-group contests have implications for national narratives as well. This article utilizes the literature on identity politics and multiculturalism to explore how Muslim Canadians are attempting to shape the national narratives of the religious in Canada. Utilizing interviews, editorials written by Muslim Canadians in the mass media, as well as Muslim organizational documents from the 2000–2008 period, this article analyses the claims and counter-claims within the Muslim-Canadian community about how they imagine the Canadian nation and the place of the religious in it