Disrupting the Unified Fixed Self: Utilizing a Poststructural Lens on the Interpretations of Muslim American Female Immigrants’ English Educational Experiences

Abstract

In this chapter, the author reflects on her dissertation study, exploring Muslim American immigrant female youths’ English educational experiences and her subjectivities. Utilizing poststructuralist, self-reflexive autobiography, the author has examined issues on English education, hijab, and colonial issues in English educational experiences. She positions narrative inquiry research into the mainstream rather than previously being seen as a margin in research. The author shares her reflections that key concepts in poststructuralism such as “experiences,” “memory,” “truth,” and “self-reflexivity” have helped her to interpret and construct the participants’ English education, and their identities as Muslims, women, and immigrants as limiting, fluctuating, and subjected to discursive systems. Further, utilizing an autobiographical form of narrative inquiry, the author explores her own limited, partial, and incomplete experiences as a Muslim woman, second language speaker of English, and English teacher. The nexus of English and Muslim identities is interwoven in this work.