Identities and Lives of Muslim Youth in the Czech Republic

Abstract

The research presents the first such account of the experiences of six Muslim migrant youth in the Czech Republic. For the purposes of this research, the data was collected for a period of almost a year. Starting in mid-2019, I pursued ethnographic research with Muslim migrant youth aged 17-22, hailing from Syria, Iran, Yemen, and Italy. Using semi-structured interviews as a primary mode of data collection and participant observations, we have explored topics related to gender, belonging, ethnicity and religion. I have aimed to look at their stories to investigate how the systems within which the youth exist operate, influencing their quotidian experiences. By putting them at the centre of their narratives, I have striven to understand how the youth navigate, negotiate, and, in return, agentially influence the systems and structures around them. An overarching conclusion points to how migration issues the youth into quotidian experiences of racism, exploitation, exploration, reaching and belonging, even as global citizens. Across this dissertation, I have argued the youth can not be conceptualized as passive recipients of migration processes, with different responses to their credit. And as such, owing to their organization as age and generation-based cohorts, the youth can position themselves as a...