Placing faith in creative labour: Muslim women and digital media work in Britain

Since the 2000s, a rapidly expanding Muslim marketplace has offered faith-centred digital content produced by and aimed at Muslim women. In geopolitical events post 9/11, adoption of the term 'Muslim women', especially by younger generations, has grown in an act of supra-national identification with the Muslima - Muslim female community - that crosses race, ethnicity, sects and class. This is reflective of a wider prioritisation of religion in the construction of personal identity by ethnic minorities and in particular by Muslims, understood as a response to unfair treatment, stigmatisation, and higher levels of social and economic exclusion (McGhee, 2008, Khattab, 2009). In the UK social exclusion has most impacted on sense of belonging for Muslim women (Karsen and Nazroo, 2016). Yet the professional and civic roles of Muslim women in challenging negative representations and discrimination are often overlooked, along with the personal impacts of performing this labour. This article highlights the experiences of Muslim women working in media as they attempt to build new Muslim female identities and spaces of belonging, and renegotiate their own position in the process.