The New Moon in Black Space: The Poetics of Ummah
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Authors
Basheir, Andre
Date
Type
thesis
Language
eng
Keyword
Muslim , Black Diaspora , Hip Hop , Caribbean , Canada , United States , Indentureship , Cultural Geography , Ethnography , Anti-Blackness , Afro-Asian , Visual Art , South Asian Diaspora , Ummah
Alternative Title
Abstract
This work examines how diasporic Black and South Asian Muslims in Toronto and New York practice ummah (Muslim brotherhood and sisterhood, global Muslim unity). Through online surveys, in-person interviews, and ethnographies of mosques, it becomes clear that the ummah illuminates interracial connections and collaborations. My work shows that interracial ummah is not in plain sight but, if read alongside Édouard Glissant’s “Poetics of Relation” and Khal Torabully’s “Coolitude,” it can be illuminated. In addition to qualitative research, this dissertation analyzes poetics (through hip hop and soca music), poetry, film, and the visual arts as well as conversations about carnival, Pride (Toronto), and cultural appropriation. I look to concepts such as Orientalism, coolitude, homonationalism, and indentured labour, to address Islam in relation to modernity, racial attachments, and spatial resistances. These different analytical sites and concepts allow me to theorize different practices of inclusion, exclusion, belonging, and unbelonging to think through the complexities of Caribbean (Black and South Asian) Muslim identifications; the focus on poetics, which is touched on throughout, shows how ummah exists as a form of sonic transnationalism. Ultimately, in highlighting diasporic, transnational, narrative (interview), and creative expressions of ummah, this project reconceptualizes the figure of the Muslim, moving it away from a problematic geographically fixed location toward a more robust, shifting, and relational category of belonging.
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Queen's University's Thesis/Dissertation Non-Exclusive License for Deposit to QSpace and Library and Archives Canada
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This publication is made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws without written authority from the copyright owner.
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States
ProQuest PhD and Master's Theses International Dissemination Agreement
Intellectual Property Guidelines at Queen's University
Copying and Preserving Your Thesis
This publication is made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws without written authority from the copyright owner.
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States