Mediated Identities: Exploring the layers of 'being' Muslim

This research is an explorative work on understanding the conflict between the ‘self’ perceptions and‘mediated’ perceptions of Muslim identity; thereby also looking at the patterns of negotiation of this conflict in everyday life. It tries to unravel the multiple layers of the ontological discourses on 'being a Muslim' and the ways in which 'Muslimness' is constructed in the post-colonial period that provide moments of ruptures and continuity in our epistemologies. The ethnographic narratives are informed by 'phenomenon of living together seperately' wherein the relationships of contemporaneity are analysed amonst the individuals and their modes of mediated consumptions through the lens of religion, age and gender. It provides a critical perspective of everydayness, which shows how individuals locate and get located historically and spatially, and simultaneously, submit to and resist hegemonic notions of the identity politics and its mediated consumptions. The research study also delineates the role of media, as an engine of cultural production, vis-à-vis the representations, stereotypes and discourses weaved around Muslim identity in India.