Producing Islams(s) in Canada

Book excerpt: During the last twenty years, public interest in Islam and how Muslims express their religious identity in Western societies has grown exponentially. In parallel, the study of Islam in the Canadian academy has grown in a number of fields since the 1970s, reflecting a diverse range of scholarship, positionalities, and politics. Yet, academic research on Muslims in Canada has not been systematically assessed. In Producing Islam(s) in Canada, scholars from a wide range of disciplines come together to explore what is at stake regarding portrayals of Islam(s) and Muslims in academic scholarship. Given the centrality of representations of Canadian Muslims in current public policy and public imaginaries, which effects how all Canadians experience religious diversity, this analysis of knowledge production comes at a crucial time.