Somali, Muslim, British (2017) by Giulia Liberatore: Somali women in London

The book

Somali, Muslim, British: Striving in Securitized Britain is by Giulia Liberatore, a social anthropologist at the University of Edinburgh (University of Edinburgh). It was published in London by Bloomsbury Academic in 2017 as volume 81 of the series Monographs on Social Anthropology, with about 305 pages (relbib; Anthropology Matters).

How it was researched

The book rests on eighteen months of fieldwork in London. According to the publisher, it draws on research with 21 Somali households (Routledge). A chapter on method describes how the author travelled across the city, built relationships with the women she studied, and gave up being vegetarian for a year (Anthropology Matters). Somali life in the city is described on Somalis in London.

What it covers

The starting point is the way Somalis in Britain have been labelled "segregated, underachieving and a threat to cohesion and security", in a period shaped by security policy after 2001 and the 2005 London bombings. Liberatore proposes the idea of "aspiration", or striving, to describe how women pursue a meaningful life in these conditions (Anthropology Matters).

• Chapters 2 to 4 are about the first generation. They link life histories to Somali history: independence, the Siad Barre government, the civil war and settlement in Britain. Many women lost status and skills that had been valued at home, and religious practice became more important to them. Wearing the hijab became a sign of identity. Some mothers felt a tension between wanting their daughters to succeed at school and university and wanting to raise them as devout Somali Muslims.
• Chapters 5 to 8 are about daughters raised in Britain. Many of them see Somali culture as something to change or leave behind, including practices such as female genital cutting, while some put religion ahead of "Somaliness". Some go "mosque hopping" in search of religious knowledge, influenced by revival movements that aim to separate Islam from local custom. Daughters often describe their own veiling as a free choice, in contrast to what they see as social pressure on their mothers. One chapter follows a young woman who mixes styles of dress and rejects the idea that not wearing the hijab means abandoning her faith.
• The conclusion turns to the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 and the Prevent duty, which requires frontline workers to report people seen as possible threats, and to the risk that research itself can feed this kind of scrutiny.

Throughout, romance, fashion, marriage and work are treated as being as important as religion (Anthropology Matters). See also Women in Somali society and Islam in Somalia.

How it was received

Qudra Goodall of the University of East Anglia, reviewing it in Anthropology Matters, called it a "timely response" to the scrutiny of Muslim women in Britain and "an excellent resource" for students of anthropology, politics and gender, with "important implications for both policy and public discussions". She noted a tension between describing the many ways people find meaning and the ways they resist, and that the book deliberately does not engage head-on with debates about Prevent (Anthropology Matters).

Where to read it

It is available in hardback, paperback and ebook from Bloomsbury and is held by university libraries.