The Merton Equality Conversation 2018

Beyond the headlines: Muslim women on identities, opportunities, and structural challenges in Britain today

The discussants at this, the fifth annual Merton Equality Conversation, were:

• Shaista Aziz, journalist and writer. Shaista's work has appeared in the Guardian, The Globe and Mail, The New York Times, and on the BBC. She is the founder of The Everyday Bigotry Project which seeks to disrupt narratives around race and bigotry. She is a former aid worker of 15 years and has worked across the Middle East, East and West Africa, and Pakistan with women affected by conflict and emergencies. She is also the co-founder of Intersectional Feminist Foreign Policy which seeks to create an ethical feminist foreign policy that does no further harm to women and that seek to include the lived experiences and expertise of women currently excluded from policy discussions on the basis of their intersectional identities.
• Dr Asma Mustafa, Research Fellow on Muslims in Britain at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and Senior Research Fellow at Linacre College. Asma’s publications include Identity and Political Participation Among Young British Muslims (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) and contributions to Muslims and Political Participation in Britain (Routledge, 2015), Young British Muslims: Between Rhetoric and Realities (Ashgate, 2016) and Islamophobia: Still a challenge for us all. A 20th anniversary report (Runnymede Trust, 2017). Currently Asma is working on Muslims in the British Armed Forces (funded by the British Academy), British Muslims and the labour market, and European attitudes towards Muslim immigration. Asma has a keen interest in research on Muslims in the West; including political participation, civic engagement, identities, social integration and transnationalism. Her personal website is www.asmamustafa.com and she uses twitter as @DrAsmaMustafa.
• Farheen Ahmed, Oxford SU VP Welfare and Equal Opportunities. Farheen has recently completed a BA in Jurisprudence at the University of Oxford. Previously, she has worked as co-chair of the Campaign for Racial Awareness and Equality, as Pembroke College JCR's Race and Ethnic Minorities Officer (2015-2016), and has collaborated with both Preventing Prevent Oxford and NUS’s Students Not Suspects campaign. Additionally, she has been involved with various student groups, in calling for Oxford to undertake a decolonisation process and to become more accessible.

Watch the conversation