‘We Hear About it All the Time’: Norwegian Muslims' Merging Stories of Racialisation and Recognition

This study employed ideas from narrative sociology to investigate how 31 Norwegian Muslims make meaning of ascriptions by mainstream society. Previous research has addressed the causes and consequences of Muslims' racialisation. However, little attention has been paid to how Muslims derive understanding from ascriptions made by others and how this process influences their self-formation. The participants made meaning by drawing on personal and cultural stories relating to their racialisation and recognition. Interestingly, they merged stories that contextualised their experiences in relation to other Muslims, defined and strengthened a collective identity and blurred essentialised images of Norwegian Muslims and mainstream society. These meaning-making processes illustrate that the self-formation of racialised minorities is shaped by storytelling across different levels of social life and is both constrained by and emerges from social contexts. The findings emphasise the benefits of moving beyond singular voices and ideal types, particularly when studying categories of difference.