Diaspora by Design: Muslim Immigrants in Canada and Beyond »

Haideh Moghissi is a professor in the Department of Sociology at York University.
Saeed Rahnema is a professor of Political Science at York University.
Mark J. Goodman is the undergraduate program director of the School of Social Sciences at York University.

Few groups face as many misconceptions within their new countries as do Muslim immigrants. This book challenges the common misperceptions of Muslim immigrants as a homogeneous, religiously driven group and identifies the tensions they experience within their host countries.

A comparative, multi-ethnic study, based on over two thousand interviews, Diaspora by Design examines Muslim populations that have settled in Canada, Britain, Iran, and Palestine. Utilizing hard socio-economic data as well as qualitative analysis, the authors show the remarkable diversity and divisions between Muslim immigrant populations along urban-rural, cultural, class, and gender lines. They argue that integration is a two-way exchange that requires a readiness on the part of the host society to remove barriers that prevent the full social and economic participation of immigrant populations.

Extensively researched and thoughtfully provocative, Diaspora by Design is a much-needed work that provides an accurate and dynamic depiction of the lives of Muslim immigrants away from their homelands.

List of Tables and Figures

1 Introduction 3

2 Community Profiles, Social Origins, and Status 25

3 Family and Spousal Relations in Diaspora 57

4 Religious Identities and Identification 84

5 Youths: Living between Two Generations and Two Cultures 111

6 Social and Economic Integration 144

7 Sense of (Not) Belonging 168

Notes 197

Bibliography 203

About the Authors 215

Index 217