Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology

J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., 21: 528–540 (2011)

Published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/casp.1120

Religion and Social Capital: Identity Matters

NICK HOPKINS*
University of Dundee, UK

ABSTRACT

This paper considers how our understanding of religious identifications may be enriched through so-
cial psychological theorizing on group identity. It reviews a range of work (for example, sociological
and social psychological) concerning Islam and Muslim identities and develops the case for viewing
religious identities as constructed in and through argument. It then seeks to draw out the implications
of such an approach for understanding group relations. Although minority religious identifications
are often assumed to undermine social cohesion, the social networks within and between groups
can contribute to inter-group harmony. For example, reciprocal relationships characterized by trust
and reciprocity can constitute forms of social capital that facilitate civic integration. Yet, how such
social networks are used and how relationships are developed depends on group members’ under-
standings of their collective identity. As this is contested, it follows that analyses of intergroup rela-
tions must attend to group members’ identity-related arguments and the strategic concerns that lie
behind them. The utility of this perspective is illustrated briefly with empirical material (arising from
interviews conducted with Muslim activists) which hints at the importance of investigating social
actors’ own theories of social capital and how it can be developed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley
& Sons, Ltd.

Key words: identity; identity construction; Islam; Islamophobia; Muslims; social capital

INTRODUCTION

Religion and religious identifications feature prominently in many everyday discussions of

social problems. Most obviously there is much popular talk in Europe of how minority re-
ligious traditions and group identities are implicated in social conflict. Often minority
faith-based identities are assumed to encourage segregation and the living of lives in par-
allel (see Cantle, 2005) and thus to pose problems for cohesion and trust. Such assump-
tions are especially strong in relation to Islam: survey research suggests majority group
members often assume Muslim identifications subvert identification with larger society
(van Oudenhoven, Karin, Prins & Buunk, 1998). However, it is erroneous to assume

*Correspondence to: Nick Hopkins, School of Psychology, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 4HN, UK.
E-mail: n.p.hopkins@dundee.ac.uk

Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

 Religion and social capital 529

Muslim identifications preclude national identifications (Maxwell, 2006; van Oudenhoven

et al., 1998). So too it is misleading to assume residential segregation reflects minority faith
group members’ aversion to others (Phillips, 2006). Yet such assumptions remain potent,
in part because they are buttressed by popular assumptions about identity. Indeed, as Sen
(2006) explores, such assumptions can actually contribute to the production and reproduc-
tion of intergroup tension because they naturalize inter-group distance.
In the present paper I explore some of the problems apparent in much popular (and some
academic) talk of religious identities. In doing so, I will draw upon a range of literatures.
If social psychological theory (for example, self-categorization theory: Turner, Hogg,
Oakes, Reicher & Wetherell, 1987) emphasizes the importance of group memberships in
self-definition (and offers an account of how cognitive representations of the collective
shape group members’ behaviour), anthropological and sociological research emphasizes
the contingency of identity on context and so alerts us to the wider social processes that
any social psychological account of identity must orient to. Indeed, such work encourages
social psychology to address the social processes of identity construction, and I will review
social psychological work on Muslim identity that conceptualizes identities as actively
constructed in and through argument. The utility of this approach will be explored through
considering interview material obtained from a project involving Muslim activists in
Britain. Although brief and falling far short of a full analysis, it illustrates something of
the need for social psychological research to take into account social actors’ own theories
of social capital and how it may be used and developed.

SOCIAL CAPITAL

A key theme in recent discussion of social cohesion concerns the social networks that link
people and the social products (for example, trust) that such networks support and sustain.
These networks provide a resource that some describe as constituting ‘social capital’. For
example, Putnam (2000, p. 19) observes: ‘Whereas physical capital refers to physical
objects and human capital refers to the properties of individuals, social capital refers to
connections among individuals – social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trust-
worthiness that arise from them.’ This social capital can take various forms: ‘bonding’
capital typically refers to the close relationships between people within close-knit groups;
‘bridging’ capital to connections between such groups; ‘linking’ capital to relationships
cutting vertically through status hierarchies.
Some believe societal diversity impacts on social capital so as to undermine social
cohesion (Putnam, 2007). However, the data are complex. For example, diversity does
not undermine cohesion where intergroup contact is high (Hewstone, 2009). Moreover,
it is important to note that faith groups can provide physical resources (for example, build-
ings) and social networks (for example, interfaith dialogue networks) that facilitate bridg-
ing relationships (Furbey et al., 2006). As such social capital is actively created through
group members’ activities, it follows that we must explore social actors’ understandings
of their faith identifications and how these shape their engagement with others. For exam-
ple, Lichterman (2008) explores how activists from US churches entered into different
civic alliances with others and explains that these were contingent upon their understand-
ings of their religious identifications.

Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., 21: 528–540 (2011)
DOI: 10.1002/casp
530 N. Hopkins

An unfortunate impediment to analysing faith identities and how they contribute to the
production of social capital is a tendency to regard religion as irrational and as therefore in-
herently problematic. As Candland (2000, pp. 355–6) observes, ‘Many social scientists see
in religious conviction an eclipse of reason and in religious motivation a constraint on en-
lightened social behaviour’. Certainly many analyses of Muslim identity have been bede-
villed by the Western science of ‘Orientalism’ which depicts Muslims as unenlightened
aliens (Said, 1978/1995). This creates a sense of intergroup distance (and distrust) which
is supported by an approach to Muslim identity that encourages us to see what is actually
a ‘heterogeneous, dynamic and complex human reality’ as static and monolithic (Said,
1978/1995, p. 333). Moreover, as Abdel-Malek (1981, p. 77) eloquently explains, this
essentialist approach to identity ‘is at once “historical”, since it reaches back into the depths
of history, and fundamentally a-historical, since it fixes the being, the “object” of study, in
its inalienable and non-evolutive specificity’. With such an essentializing vision of identity,
a ‘clash of civilisations’ appears inevitable (Huntington, 1993).
Given this state of affairs, social psychology’s distinctive contribution to the study of
religion may lie in the provision of a more nuanced model of identity. Such a model must
challenge essentialist assumptions about faith identities in general (and Muslims in partic-
ular) and allow theorization of how social relationships (within and between groups) can
be built and social capital produced.

A SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF GROUP IDENTITY

Developing this alternative is no easy task. Much talk of identity is permeated by essential-
ist assumptions that constrain its use as an analytic concept (see Brubaker & Cooper,
2000). Critical sociological and anthropological studies make the point that despite their
apparent fixity and solidity, identities (whether, ethnic, national or religious) do not exist
apart from or beneath their social representation or outside the conditions of their own
making (Brubaker, Loveman & Stamatov, 2004; Macdonald, 1993). Such analyses invite
us to conceptualize identities in terms of the cognitive representation of self and direct us to
investigate how these are contingent upon human social activity and practice. Thus, we are
enjoined to investigate the social practices that make thinking of oneself in terms of a par-
ticular group membership possible (for example, the practices of banal nationalism: Billig,
1995). So too we are enjoined to study how these identities are given particular contents.
Social psychological theorizing on group-level social identities offers much in this
regard. Self-categorization theory (SCT: Turner et al., 1987) views social categories as
important in self-definition. Sometimes we define ourselves in terms of individual unique-
ness, sometimes in terms of specific group memberships. This shift in the salience of indi-
vidual-level personal and group-based social identities underlies the behavioural shift
from individual to group behaviour: group behaviour is possible because of our ability
to represent to ourselves the characteristics associated with the collective. Moreover, such
representations are fundamentally social so that when we act in terms of a social identity
we act as socially constituted beings (Reicher & Hopkins, 2001). Hopefully this makes
it clear that a focus on self-categorization does not imply any privileging of what goes
on in people’s heads over what goes on around them. Quite the contrary: our attention is
drawn to the group-making activities that support such self-categories and give them
particular contents.

Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., 21: 528–540 (2011)
DOI: 10.1002/casp
 Religion and social capital 531

Before addressing identity construction in more detail, I first consider the context depen-
dence of Muslim identifications. This will alert us to a range of phenomena that social
psychological analyses of religious identity must address.

MUSLIM IDENTITIES IN CONTEXT

It is tempting to believe religious identities are defined by scriptural text and are therefore
invariant over time and place. Yet sociological and anthropological work shows the mean-
ings of such texts are not given but contingent upon the political, social and economic
context of those reading them. For example, Eickelman and Piscatori (1990) observe inter-
pretation of the Qur’anic terms ‘mustad’afun’ (‘the oppressed’) and ‘mustakbarun’ (‘the
oppressors’) in Khomeini’s speeches was shaped by the earlier publication of Fanon’s
anti-colonial ‘The Wretched of the Earth’. The wider implication is that rather than there
being a single Islam, there are as many Islams as there are situations that sustain it
(Al-Azmeh, 1993).
Moreover, it is not simply that at different times and in different places scripture is read
differently. Rather, in any one context we can expect contestation over the relevance and
interpretation of any principle. Take for example the controversy that engulfed Muslim stu-
dents in nineteenth century Paris. This concerned whether, from a religious point of view,
it was possible to adopt Western habits of dress, especially Western hats (Shadid & van
Koningsveld, 1996, p. 92). The debate involved two opposing fatwas (religious rulings).
One (Answers to the perplexed ones concerning the statute of the hat of the Christians,
1862) argued it was only religious assimilation which was forbidden and that, as the
wearing of a broad-brimmed hat did not imply assimilation, it was acceptable. Another
(Refutation of the Epistle ‘Answers to the perplexed ones concerning the statute of the
hat of the Christians’) maintained the hat was forbidden because one could not pray whilst
wearing it. Furthermore, the claim that the hat was necessary because of poor weather was
deemed invalid because the students did not have to be in Paris in the first place. As the
only obligatory sciences were the religious disciplines (which could not be studied outside
the Muslim world), the students were instructed to return immediately to dar al-Islam (the
‘territory of Islam’).
This example illustrates a point made by Goddard (2002, p. 4) who (building on the work
of others) pithily observes there is ‘nothing called “Islam” which can speak for itself; there
are only “Muslims”, practitioners of Islam who attempt to speak for it’ and they do not
speak with one voice. Moreover, the contrast between this nineteenth century debate and
those found now is striking testament to how understandings of identity and identity-related
dilemmas develop. Indeed, contemporary debates reflect the fact that Muslim communities
are rooted in European societies and there is much in Ahmed and Donnan’s (1994, p. 5) sug-
gestion that we should look at Muslim societies in the West ‘as local, as indigenous not as
the other, the exotic or the Oriental’. This can be illustrated with the British example.
Many Muslims in the UK have (because of family connections) associations with di-
verse traditions of belief in the Indian sub-continent. However, when considering Muslim
identities in the UK, we need to guard against assuming debate is between pre-given tradi-
tions for this overlooks emergent positions that require location in the immediate circum-
stances of their production. To some degree such emergent ideologies have arisen from a
generational dynamic in which second and third generation activists developed an Islamic

Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., 21: 528–540 (2011)
DOI: 10.1002/casp
532 N. Hopkins

identification less dependent upon family ethnic identifications. Inevitably, this process
was shaped by local controversies (such as the publication of Salman Rushdie’s ‘The
Satanic Verses’) which encouraged Britain’s Muslims to organise in terms of their Muslim
identity at a national (UK) level. This entailed developing a discourse capable of trans-
cending the confines of established Islamic schools of thought and Muslims’ ‘return’ to
holy texts has been important in the ongoing reimagining of Muslims’ religious and
national identities. Indeed, returning to the Qur’an and Sunnah has provided ‘an Islamic
basis for active citizenship and engagement’ in which ‘what could be labelled pre-
cisely “fundamentalism” – becomes not a route to terrorism but to genuine “integration”’
(Kundnani, 2008, p. 58). It is also striking that the development of these readings reflects
Muslims’ experiences of prejudice. For example, Modood (1993, pp. 518–519) observes
that the positions taken by several in the 1980s and 1990s ‘reflect not so much obscurantist
Islamic interventions into a modern secular discourse, but typical minority options in con-
temporary Anglo-American equality politics, and employ the rhetorical, conceptual and in-
stitutional resources available in that politics’.
Thus far I have argued that despite their timeless appearance, religious identities are
made and remade through human social practice and that this process is inevitably contex-
tualized. The question then becomes the conceptualization of such practice and its relation-
ship with context.

SOCIAL IDENTITIES: ACTION AND CULTURE

Much social psychological research has tended to assume group identities have singular
meanings. However, some has started to explore within-group argument about the mean-
ing and significance of that group’s identity. For example, Reicher and Hopkins (2001)
explore how Scots dispute the meaning of Scottish national identity. This shows that
everything from the breadth to this identity (who is to be included as fellow group
members) to its contents (the group’s values and prototypical group exemplars) are dis-
puted. Although sitting uneasily with much lay (and academic) imagery, a moment’s re-
flection on the psychological and behavioural significance of group identities suggests
why dispute may be expected. The logic to SCT is not to specify the behavioural outcomes
of identifying with a group. Rather, it argues behaviour is shaped by members’ cognitive
representation of ingroup identity, and it follows that it is for this reason that arguments
about identity are worth entering into and therefore exist. Or to put it another way, it is
because social identity definitions are behaviourally consequential that those wishing to
bring different visions of society into being may be expected to construe identity differ-
ently (Reicher & Hopkins, 2001).
Inevitably, bringing an interest in rhetorical construction to the domain of identity raises
many issues of theory and method. Many qualitative analyses of identity are informed by
the theory and practice of Discourse Analysis (DA: Potter & Wetherell, 1987) which
eschews a cognitive level of analysis such as that associated with SCT to focus on how
interactants accomplish particular versions of self and behaviour in the flow of conversa-
tion (see Antaki & Widdicombe, 1998). In contrast, the approach to identity adopted here
(informed by SCT’s account of what makes group behaviour possible) focuses on how
social identity is constructed so as to organize particular forms of group behaviour. Ac-
cordingly, it is less concerned with the immediate interactional business being attended

Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., 21: 528–540 (2011)
DOI: 10.1002/casp
 Religion and social capital 533

to in a particular turn-taking sequence and focuses on broader issues of strategy (for exam-
ple, concerning the organization of group behaviour).
The merits of such a level of analysis may be illustrated through considering Muslim
debates with regard to the issue of participating in the 1997 UK General Election (Hopkins
& Kahani-Hopkins, 2004). Although focused on the topic of whether to vote, the debate
concerned the wider question of how Muslims could be influential in British society and
included alternative visions of the action necessary for change. Most obviously, the
debates touched upon questions concerning how Muslims could build their connections
with other Muslims and with non-Muslims, and with what consequence. In the process
of addressing these issues, the advocates of participation and of non-participation ad-
vanced their cause through depicting their preferred courses of action as the embodiment
of Islamic identity. Thus, construing participation as appropriate, some argued it was
necessary for Muslims to fulfil their religious duty. In the words of one, ‘As citizens of
Britain, our duty is the same as our duty as Muslims. To perform that duty it follows that
we are not and cannot be a ghetto community. We are and must be an outwards looking
community. We need to interact with people – people of different faith and no faith’
(‘Why you should exercise your vote,’ Q-News, no. 255–259, 14th March 1997, p. 26).
For others, non-participation better exemplified group identity. For example, some argued
participation could compromise Muslims’ ability to develop a clear community identity
and agenda. Developing this argument one countered: ‘When becoming politically active,
in a secular environment, we must follow a method in accordance with the Qur’an and
Sunnah, not the political parties. You cannot be loyal to the Labour party and God at the
same time. You cannot become integrated into an ungodly and unjust political system,
and at the same time serve God and bring justice. There is a very simple principle in Islam,
“no man can serve two masters”’ (‘And why you should not’ – a reply to ‘Why you should
exercise your vote,’ Q News, no. 255–259, 14th March 1997, p. 27).
As noted earlier, faith identities (especially Muslim identities) are typically depicted as
fixed. However, attending to the discursive construction of identity underlines the observa-
tion that religious identities are sites of ongoing struggle and contestation. For example, in
the debate referred to above it was striking that regardless of the action proposed, all par-
ticipants referred to Prophetic example when Muslims lived as social and political minor-
ities. Thus, pro-participation activists referred to the Prophet Yusuf who, when famine
threatened Egypt, ‘took charge of the most important office in the pagan Pharaoh’s govern-
ment. He did not wait for the ruler and people to renounce their paganism before acting. He
moved swiftly and served the people, fulfilling their essential needs and rescuing them
from starvation. He did not remain aloof’ (Hopkins & Kahani-Hopkins, 2004, p. 348).
In contrast, their opponents could be found referring to the example of Muhammad in
Makkah where he and his companions ‘lived as a distinct community with their own iden-
tity and pursued their own agenda. They would interact with Makkan society, but never
integrated in to it. Our policy must be the same: yes to interaction, no to integration. To
do this requires Muslims to establish an independent political and economic infrastructure’
(Hopkins & Kahani-Hopkins, 2004, p. 351).
As such exchanges hint, no aspect of identity is beyond dispute. Prophetic example may
be central to Islam, yet it is a site of much argument. So too is the injunction to perform
da’wah (roughly translated as the injunction to invite people to Islam) subject to different
interpretation as people invoke it to advance diverse understandings of how Muslims
should relate to non-Muslims (Kahani-Hopkins & Hopkins, 2002). The wider point is that

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DOI: 10.1002/casp
534 N. Hopkins

rather than being fixed, religious culture may best be viewed as constituting a ‘reserve’
(Reszler, 1992) of symbols and meanings to be appropriated and deployed in the activity
of identity definition. In fact, there is good reason to expect those cultural products (includ-
ing holy verses – see Hopkins & Kahani-Hopkins, 2009) that are familiar to all to be espe-
cially contested: their commonplace status means they are potent resources with which to
direct action.
From what has been said earlier, it should be clear that the relationship between context
and identity is complex. On the one hand, the context in which religious texts are read shapes
how they are understood and deployed (see Eickelman & Piscatori, 1990). On the other,
such texts are read and understood so as to organise forms of action to reconfigure that
context and bring into being new social relationships (Hopkins & Kahani-Hopkins, 2004,
2009). Indeed, building upon this latter observation, it should be clear that constructions
of identity may be of direct relevance for how social capital is produced and reproduced.
Taking the argument over electoral participation, it is possible to see the one construction
as organized to facilitate bridging activities (for example, becoming involved in political
parties) and the other as designed to facilitate bonding activities (for example, undertaking
autonomous community development). Moreover, attending to the strategic dimension to
these constructions alerts us to more nuanced understandings of this social capital. Typi-
cally bonding activities are conceptualized as impediments to social cohesion. However,
from the point of view of the actors themselves, bonding may be a precondition for effec-
tive bridging activity: bonding could be seen as important for creating the self-definition
and confidence that could allow more equal interaction (Hopkins & Kahani-Hopkins,
2004, 2006).
This is an issue to which I will return. For now, let us consider the dynamics through
which social capital may be actively produced.

SOCIAL CAPITAL: DYNAMICS AND OUTCOMES

Analysing identity construction is important in any exploration of how religion may be in-
volved in the production of social capital. However, analysis should not be restricted to in-
vestigating construction: we also need to explore how such constructions impact on action
and context and in turn are affected by changes in that context. Investigating such dynam-
ics requires ethnographic research and social psychology can learn much from anthropo-
logical investigation. Take for example Werbner’s (2000) analysis of a UK Muslim
women’s group active in the 1990s. The group comprised middle-class Punjabi women en-
gaged in fund-raising for projects in Kashmir and Palestine. As their plans met opposition
from local male community leaders, the women became aware of the mismatch between
their understandings of how they could behave and what the local male leadership envis-
aged for them. The women used their group meetings to explore their frustrations and re-
imagine their Muslim identities. Hitherto taken-for-granted traditions and customs were
reconstrued as merely ‘cultural’ and not genuinely ‘Islamic’. Moreover, their re-imagined
Muslim identification entailed a re-appropriation of Ayesha (Muhammad’s wife), known
for her boldness and wisdom.
The trajectory to these women’s understanding of their Islamic identification could not
have been predicted but emerged through the dynamic of dispute in which the women
responded to the traditional leadership’s characterization of their identity with an

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DOI: 10.1002/casp
 Religion and social capital 535

alternative (that in turn invited response, and so on). Moreover, the innovation and creativ-
ity in these constructions encouraged forms of identity-related practice that fed back into
their self-definition. That is, emboldened by their re-imagined identity, the women ex-
panded their activities (for example, fund-raising), and their practical successes in this do-
main confirmed their new self-conception, further increasing their confidence to speak in
the diasporic public sphere. Or to put it another way, their collective successes underscored
the practical viability of their re-imagined identity.
It is also noteworthy that the outcomes of such successes were varied. The women were
empowered as women and as Muslims in the local Pakistani-heritage community. How-
ever, they were also empowered with regard to non-Muslim councillors, Members of
Parliament and various institutions. That is, their evolving identity had the unforeseen con-
sequence of developing networks that empowered them as active British citizens
(Werbner, 2000). The women were able to develop bridging capital with non-Muslim
others concerned over Kashmir and Palestine and also develop linking capital with the
local British political establishment.
Thus far I have argued that we need to consider how faith identities may be constructed
strategically to bring about particular forms of identity-based action that could result in
particular relationships (and particular forms of social capital). I have also argued that
we need to explore how such constructions impact on action and, as is illustrated in the
case of the women’s group just described, this can set in train an ongoing dynamic that
may result in unanticipated outcomes. Again the implication is that any analysis of identity
construction must be situated and contextualized. One wider corollary of this insight is that
if one is interested in Muslim identities in Britain, it is important to appreciate Muslims’
experiences of minority status. This is a key aspect of the context that Muslims (and other
faith group members) inhabit and a failure to investigate social actors’ own representations
of their minority position and the issues that this brings is likely to lead to misunderstand-
ings of group members’ stances.

SOCIAL CAPITAL: MINORITY GROUP PERSPECTIVES

The significance of being a minority for one’s engagement in social networks is

well-illustrated in recent developments in intergroup contact research (of obvious rele-
vance to bridging activity such as inter-faith dialogue). Tropp and Pettigrew’s (2005)
meta-analytic review of the effects of friendship on inter-group attitudes shows weaker
effects for minorities than majorities. This may be because the former’s relative power-
lessness leads them to experience contact differently (Hubbard, 1999). Moreover, a mi-
nority’s understandings of their identities and the dynamics to their negative stereotyping
may lead them to view contact with caution.
For example, Islamophobia can be understood as being based on an ignorance of Islam’s
diversity with the corollary being that contact (for example, inter-faith dialogue) could be
construed as a vehicle for change (because it allows insight into within-group variability).
However, with a different understanding of Muslim identity and the dynamics of Islamo-
phobia, contact could be viewed less positively. For example, someone subscribing to the
view that Islam provides a critique of an unjust social order may come to construe contact
as identity-threatening if they believe the highlighting of within-group diversity could un-
dermine Muslims’ ability to speak out on injustice with a distinctive voice. Indeed, such an

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analysis could imply that rather than Islamophobia being challenged through bridging
activity (such as inter-faith dialogue), a period of bonding activity (for example, autono-
mous social and political organization) was needed before group members could
engage in bridging activity from a position of confidence and power (see Hopkins &
Kahani-Hopkins, 2006).
In thinking about their minority status, group members do not only refer to Prophetic
example or Qur’anic verses but also to such issues as the psychology of ‘confidence’
and the social bases to ‘empowerment’. Whether their theorizing of such issues accurately
describes the dynamics of empowerment is not the issue. Rather, the important point is that
such theories of social capital (and how it may be developed) may impact on their invest-
ment in bonding and bridging activities. A fully-fledged investigation of such theories is
beyond the scope of this paper. However, the potential utility of exploring social actors’
thinking on these issues can be hinted at with illustrations taken from an interview study
with Muslim activists (for details see Hopkins, 2011; Hopkins, Greenwood & Birchall,
2007). The extracts below come from two different activists and my reason for selecting
them is that they reveal something of the contestation surrounding the issue of how to
develop a minority group’s social capital.
Speaking of the issues facing Muslims in Britain (including the experience of Islamo-
phobia), the first interviewee argued in favour of faith schools:
Look, mainstream education is just hell. We think our kids will come out confident from a Muslim
school and be able to integrate better rather than having a destructive eight years. It wasn’t that sort
of Muslim nationalism ‘We want to separate!’
She added that even with apparently integrated schooling:
I mean people will just still be segregated in the playground, you know. A lot of us have been
down that road. We’ve been the four kind of off-white people in the corner versus the 94 white
people or whatever it is. Yeah, I mean there is a huge amount of naivety in that.
In this account, the intergroup dynamics to marginalization are understood as meaning
that minority group members need the social space in which they can develop the confident
identity that the interviewee regards as the precondition for successful interaction. In other
words, there is a sense in which within-group bonding activity is construed as a precondi-
tion for successful participation in bridging networks. Similar themes were apparent as the
discussion moved on to consider the costs and benefits of segregated living. For example,
the same interviewee argued that social space was often organized in group terms and that
apparently neutral space was actually permeated by majority group power. Specifically,
she argued that whereas there was a public space ‘that there is supposed to be mixing in’:
actually it is just a majority space of which they [that is, Muslims] are very uncomfortable. [ ]
There isn’t a common space. I think that’s the thing – that common space has to have the kind
of equality between participants in it. And again, there is majority space and minority space.
Here again the interviewee alludes to how majority group status shapes the meaning of
place and space and impacts upon the tone and quality of the interactions that can occur
(even in apparently common space). Moreover, she continued to express a concern that
‘Whatever little, if you like segregated space they [that is, Muslims] have, is under threat’,
and that this itself could be experienced as hurtful and oppressive. This again illustrates the
importance of attending to social actors’ own understandings of their context and what this
means for their approach to bonding and bridging networks. What may appear as a

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 Religion and social capital 537

reluctance to engage in bridging activities may actually say nothing about any antipathy to
others (as is sometimes concluded) but more about minority group members’ interpretation
of their group’s powerlessness and their analyses of the resources (including space and the
bonding social capital that it may support and sustain) needed for identity empowerment.
From what has been said already, it would be foolish to expect consensus on such issues.
Thus, another interviewee argued that faith schools could only compound the problem.
Referring to failing schools, he asked ‘What are we doing?’ and described the answer as
being: ‘Let’s make up our own independent school cos that school’s failing us’. This
activist continued:
Well no! Become, become a Governor of that school. Start demanding improvements. Do a picket
if you have to. But make sure those children aren’t failed by the State that your tax money’s pay-
ing for. But that passive disengagement means that we can’t help either ourselves or anybody else.
It just means that you’ve got a negative view of yourself, that you don’t have anything to input that
the wider community might like other than taxis at night and curries when they’re – it doesn’t
wash with me anyway.

For this interviewee, Muslim schools were not a basis for identity development but
manifested a form of ‘passive disengagement’ which was itself symptomatic of a negative
self-image. The alternative, he argued, was ‘a politicized Muslim community’ and here he
identified a different social basis for Muslim confidence. In particular, he was critical of
traditional community elders acting as intermediaries between their communities and the
political process. This limited Muslims’ direct engagement with local bodies and authori-
ties (and hence limited bridging and linking activity). For this interviewee, political debate
was crucial to Muslims’ empowerment as Muslims and as British citizens. With regard to
the former, open debate would revitalize mosques as a source of meaningful social capital.
With regard to the latter, Muslims would have the confidence to enter into joint activity
with non-Muslims on all manner of issues (including such topics as Palestine and the
war in Iraq). Moreover, he maintained that such political activity was entirely consonant
with British traditions of democratic citizenship (as he put it, ‘It’s when we don’t get
involved is when we’re not doing the British thing’).
Although necessarily limited, this material hints at the range of identity-related dispute.
Not only can we expect debate as to the significance of Prophetic example or Qur’anic
verse, we can also expect diverse analyses of the psychology of confidence and the social
bases of empowerment as social actors themselves deliberate on the social capital provided
by their group membership and how it can be developed. Here the ‘accuracy’ of such theo-
rizations is not the issue. Rather, the point is that such theories can shape behaviour and our
analysis of faith identities can only be enriched by a sensitivity to these actors’ strategic
thinking. Support for separate schooling may not necessarily reflect disengagement: bond-
ing activity may be construed as a precondition for successful integration. In a related way,
participation in critical political activity may not necessarily reflect alienation and dis-
identification as British. Indeed, it may be understood as empowering and as facilitating
the development of bridging and linking capital.

CONCLUSION

Popular and academic assumptions about broader geopolitical tensions and within-nation
diversity interact to construe Muslims as posing unique problems for Western societies.

Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., 21: 528–540 (2011)
DOI: 10.1002/casp
538 N. Hopkins

Such images are highly dangerous and academic theorizing has particular responsibilities
in this regard. As Sen (2006, p. 44) observes, ‘theories of civilizational clash have often
provided allegedly sophisticated foundations of crude and coarse popular beliefs. Cultivated
theory can bolster uncomplicated bigotry’. In this context critical theories of identity are par-
ticularly important. Anthropological and sociological work alerts us to the contingency of
group identity on social processes and practices. In turn social psychological research has
much to offer through viewing group members as participants in the on-going definition
of social identity as they deliberate on their context and their strategic options. Moreover,
it leads us to consider how these deliberations may be bound up with creating social relation-
ships and producing social capital.
Where the group in question is a minority faith identity, the exploration of such delibera-
tions must be sensitive to group members’ experiences of being a social and numerical
minority. As some of the material reported in this paper hints, a group’s relative powerless-
ness and what this means for their social identity may be prominent concerns for group
members. Moreover, these concerns can shape their understandings of how social relation-
ships with others can be used to develop identity. Inevitably, as group members interpret
and theorize their conditions of existence (and the action that could transform these), we
can expect much debate over the group’s social capital, how it can be produced and to what
end. This ongoing process of construction is not necessarily democratic (in all groups cer-
tain voices tend to count more than others) and how these debates are played out must
therefore be attuned to hierarchy and power within faith groups.
Yet, the balance to within-group argument may also be shaped by the arguments and
actions of others. Given the power asymmetries between majorities and minorities, the for-
mer are uniquely placed to make their understandings of the latter’s activities heard and
count and, in addition to exploring minority group members’ theories of social capital,
future research could also investigate how majority groups’ assumptions about minority
identity may (whether by design or accident) shape a minority’s experiences and hence
group members’ theorization of their options. For example, it is possible that official policy
emphases on social cohesion may actually be counter-productive. Thus, Fekete (2008)
cautions that such emphases may lead some Muslims to conclude that certain issues cannot
be raised for fear of being seen to jeopardize ‘good relations’: research could usefully
address how this may impact negatively on the bonding, bridging and linking capital that
could facilitate citizenship and integration. Such an observation is particularly applicable
to British Muslims’ engagement with struggles overseas. As hinted earlier, such engage-
ment can be a basis for the bonding and bridging activities that empower individuals as
Muslims and as British citizens. Yet, it can be construed by others as problematic and this
may be particularly common in relation to contemporary views of Muslims.
Again this underlines the importance of caution when interpreting minority faith group
members’ activities. The danger is that essentializing images of identity (especially Muslim
identity) and negative images of diversity impede the analysis of social actors’ own theori-
zations of their social capital and how it can be used and developed. Moreover, given the
tendency for social scientific work to regard religion as inherently problematic (Candland,
2000), analyses of religion should remember Seumas Milne’s observation that ‘Like nation-
alism, religion can play a reactionary or progressive role, and the struggle is now within it,
not against it’ (cited in Kundnani, 2008). If we are to understand such struggles and how
they shape the production of relationships and social capital, we need a social psychology
of identity that places the constructed and contested nature of identity centre stage.

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DOI: 10.1002/casp
 Religion and social capital 539

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DOI: 10.1002/casp