Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Secularism Versus Awkwardness In Public Spaces: An Online Ethnography With Muslims In Windsor, Ontario, Galina Şcolnic

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation asks how Muslims in Windsor, ON imagine and undertake political action, often formed through the lived experiences of migration, gender, and class, in the context of Canadian secularism. I argue that secularism has the neo-colonial effect of oppressing marginalized peoples by excluding them from public spaces and undermining democratic engagements. However, as my fieldwork exposed secularism’s tacit discriminatory effects, it also revealed how Muslims thrive despite restrictions on their public lives, resist oppression, and create open communities where everyone willing to learn is welcome.

Theoretical engagements with the works of Hannah Arendt and Sara Ahmed reveal that Muslim …