Abstract
In this introductory chapter, Shanon Shah lays out the purpose of this study of gay Muslims in Malaysia and Britain and introduces the book’s main themes. He establishes the importance of understanding the experiences of gay Muslims in different country contexts, given that they are so often talked about and legislated upon but rarely heard from. He argues that this comparison can give us helpful insights into how society constructs its ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’. He then presents the book’s main approach, which draws upon social scientific insights on religion, sexuality, ethnicity, nationalism and ‘deviance’ to analyse his findings. The chapter illustrates these points with ethnographic vignettes and dialogue—a hallmark of the rest of the book.
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Notes
- 1.
Throughout this book, with the exception of my partner, Giles, I use pseudonyms for all my participants and remove the personal details that might make them identifiable. For a full list, see Appendix A: Information on Interviewees.
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Shah, S. (2018). Introduction. In: The Making of a Gay Muslim. Palgrave Studies in Lived Religion and Societal Challenges. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63130-1_1
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