Taking the strain: second generation British Asian Muslim Males and arranged marriage in London
type: CreativeWork
description: This thesis considers how second generation British Asian Muslim males negotiate arranged marriage, religion and leisure, and how this negotiation is a means to achieve a culturally prescribed goal. The culturally prescribed goal will be demonstrated to be the attainment of wealth and the maintenance of family bonds. An ethnographic study of thirty second generation British Asian Muslim males was conducted in order to understand how decisions regarding marriage and leisure are made. The modes of negotiation of marriage, leisure and religion are analysed using Merton’s (1938, 1957) Anomie and Strain theory as well as Murphy and Robinson’s (2008) concept of the maximiser. Empirical research is used to describe and analyse how the maximiser achieves the culturally prescribed goal mentioned above. It is argued that the maximiser uses both legitimate and illegitimate means in order to achieve a culturally prescribed goal. The legitimate means in this study are having an arranged marriage and abiding by rules of Islam and the family. It will be argued that through a process of intense socialisation, the means to achieve the culturally prescribed goal are learnt from childhood for some British Asian Muslims. It will be argued that culture is misrepresented as religion in order to facilitate this process of intense socialisation in some British Muslim communities which creates a pressure to conform. The modes of adaptation to this pressure including the conformist, the innovator, the Ritualist, the Retreatist and the Rebel are explored. The focus of the study is on the maximiser as it is argued that the maximiser reproduces a system of transnational consanguineous arranged marriages. The methods of negotiation are analysed using symbolic interactionist perspectives, namely Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Goffman 1959) and Delinquency and Drift (Matza 1964). This process of negotiating marriage particularly when considering transnational consanguineous marriages, is r…
abstract: This thesis considers how second generation British Asian Muslim males negotiate arranged marriage, religion and leisure, and how this negotiation is a means to achieve a culturally prescribed goal. The culturally prescribed goal will be demonstrated to be the attainment of wealth and the maintenance of family bonds. An ethnographic study of thirty second generation British Asian Muslim males was conducted in order to understand how decisions regarding marriage and leisure are made. The modes of negotiation of marriage, leisure and religion are analysed using Merton’s (1938, 1957) Anomie and Strain theory as well as Murphy and Robinson’s (2008) concept of the maximiser. Empirical research is used to describe and analyse how the maximiser achieves the culturally prescribed goal mentioned above. It is argued that the maximiser uses both legitimate and illegitimate means in order to achieve a culturally prescribed goal. The legitimate means in this study are having an arranged marriage and abiding by rules of Islam and the family. It will be argued that through a process of intense socialisation, the means to achieve the culturally prescribed goal are learnt from childhood for some British Asian Muslims. It will be argued that culture is misrepresented as religion in order to facilitate this process of intense socialisation in some British Muslim communities which creates a pressure to conform. The modes of adaptation to this pressure including the conformist, the innovator, the Ritualist, the Retreatist and the Rebel are explored. The focus of the study is on the maximiser as it is argued that the maximiser reproduces a system of transnational consanguineous arranged marriages. The methods of negotiation are analysed using symbolic interactionist perspectives, namely Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Goffman 1959) and Delinquency and Drift (Matza 1964). This process of negotiating marriage particularly when considering transnational consanguineous marriages, is r…
author: Aziz, Rashid
keywords: BP Islam. Bahaism. Theosophy, etc, HM Sociology
date published: 2017
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:39:30Z
provider: City University of London
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: City, University of London