EJOP #1. Muslim Women's Experiences of Identity and Belonging in Switzerland - Rachael Loxston

For the very first episode of our collaboration with Europe's Journal of Psychology, Rachael Loxton joins to discuss her research paper titled “Liberty Can Be for You One Thing, and for Me Something Different”: Muslim Women's Experiences of Identity and Belonging in Switzerland.
This paper investigates how these concepts are experienced by Muslim women in Switzerland, a minority group targeted in the political campaign nicknamed the “burka ban.” We go through the key research questions, background and the main findings centered around: How do Muslim women construct their identity in Switzerland? How do Muslim women experience a sense of belonging in Switzerland?

Link to the article: https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10623

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro to EJOP collab
• 1:25 Introduction to the paper and authors
• 9:00 The study design, multiple identities and stereotypes
• 17:51 Study Methods, Results and Participant interactions
• 39:10 Practical Applications/Advice to Counsellors
• 51:01 More themes from the study
• 59:45 Final summary and Wrap up

Transcript

0:00

Bye! Okay, cool. Welcome everybody to the Smooth Brain Society. What we are trying to do with this particular edition, as you will see when I put the episode up, it won't be our regular serial numbers. It will start off with EJOP because we are working with the Europe's Journal of Psychology, which is a free access journal. And we had the two editors of the journal on to speak. to us a while ago. So Vlad Glevineau spoke about creativity and Johannes Kahl came and spoke on about rituals. So, and they contacted me and asked whether we could do this to some of the papers which they publish in their journal so that people who find reading scientific journals hard or annoying can probably listen to them and listen to what is going on in the papers or the other way around. If people... listen to this first and then I'm more interested in reading the paper can go and read the actual article. So we thought it was a great idea. And this is going to be the first episode of this kind. And the very first paper, which we will be talking about is, and they will be released, these episodes will be released with the article. So when they come out, they'll be released around the same time, although we are recording them a lot earlier. All right. is liberty can be for you one thing, for me something different. Muslim women's experiences of identity and belonging in Switzerland. And to discuss it, we have one of the authors of the paper, the lead author of the paper, Rachel Loxtonon. Rachel is a counselor, a qualified counselor, and also a qualified yoga instructor. She is currently in San Diego, California, which makes me ask the question. which I will ask the question to her once I welcome her on as to one, this seems like a lot of connections here. You're in California. This paper is about Switzerland and I guess you're explaining it to someone sitting in New Zealand. So could you please kind of, and the paper, the second author on the paper is Lisa Jenkins or Yankins? Yankins Lisa Yankins who's the associate professor in Nottingham University. And so that's another country which we need to add in here. So if you could probably link all of these together as to your story and background a little bit as to how this came about, why Switzerland was chosen, what you're doing in America now, and just a little bit of a background before we get into the actual paper, that'd be great. So welcome, Rachel. Thank you very much. Yes, definitely we need to link the threads together. So I myself, I've lived in five different countries. I was born in the UK when I wrote the paper. I was living in Switzerland and also the second author was as well, but she's now relocated to the UK. The interest also came about because prior to living in Switzerland, I was living in the UAE. So I was living in Abu Dhabi and then Dubai for around eight years. And then even prior to that, I was traveling throughout the Middle East early 20s. So I already had a lot of experience in living in Islamic countries and then coupled with the experiences of going back to Europe. Well, I lived in Switzerland and then the motivation from the paper came from what I experienced from my move from the Middle East back to Europe. Awesome. I also should introduce Alex because I did not. Alex was, of course, on previously, he is the editor, he is a producer of this podcast. And yeah, he's joining us again for this one. So yeah, thanks, Alex. Sorry, didn't you know? No worries. No, no, no. I think what's really interesting is that all of us have lived in lots of different countries, which is really fun, which hopefully brings a lot of cool international or... perspective to this topic. I'm really excited to get into it. Awesome. So let's start with the basics of this paper. So I read the title out. But if you could give us a little bit of a background of why you decided to do this, what are the key things which we should probably know if someone wants to read it. Okay, so the inspiration was during my master's degree, which was in counselling. which I was undertaking in Geneva and Switzerland. And we had a really broad range of topics that we were allowed to discuss. And during the time where I was thinking about which different topics I would like to explore, there was the referendum of the so-called Burka ban. What it was in fact was, it was a referendum on a ban on face covering in public. in 2021. And the thing that struck me most about the referendum was the posters and the rhetoric in regards to the political campaign. In my view, they were very provocative. And at the time, I lived very close to Lake Zurich, which is an absolutely beautiful lake. And I'm sure, as both of you know, and as many people know, Switzerland renowned for its natural beauty. On one side I had this beautiful lake and mountains and everything was so beautiful. And then on the other hand, you had these posters which were all around the city and all around places within Switzerland, which were very menacing. They had Muslim women were depicted in quite a menacing fashion and the slogan was stop terrorism. And that really struck me and struck a chord with me. And because of my experience of living in the Middle East, which was so different to the way that the Muslim women were being depicted at that time, it encouraged me to become curious as to how Muslim women may feel about this depiction. And that's how the research came about. Yeah, so I'm showing a couple of the pictures which you mentioned on screen, which you sent through to me. So one was, I guess the one which I'm showing right now is a few minarets kind of piercing through the Swiss flag. Um, and it's saying, and the slogan saying stop and someone in a burka with like menacing looking eyes, basically. Well, that's one for description. Um, And that was actually from 2009. So this was a previous political campaign. And that was for the ban on the construction of new minarets in Switzerland. And let's see if you can share. I'm interested because I remember when I was at school, I went to a German school and we did a lot of like European social studies and stuff. And we looked a little bit into Switzerland. as back in I think in around 2016, we looked at some of this stuff as well because of the rise in Germany of the IFDA party and things like that. Because the sort of rhetoric was becoming more widespread, but I'm interested it started as early as 2009. Wow. Did you have a specific timeframe you were really looking at around that referendum or were you considering sort of the whole 21st century or was it really focused around the referendum period? Yeah, it was focused in the aftermath. So basically in Switzerland, it's known as like direct democracy, where people vote on many initiatives and referendums throughout the year. And so this was one that was brought to the people who could who are allowed to vote in Switzerland. And it was, it was passed. And so my interest was the period after this was passed and also considering the context of the campaign itself and perhaps the reactions to that. What most interested me is how do the women feel now after this particular campaign and the interviews that I took were quite fresh after the yes referendum. Okay, so just to clarify, The interviews that you took were after this referendum was passed. So after the ban was actually instated. And yeah, it wasn't instated yet, but it was passed. And then when it was on the way to be instated. I was just going to say, what was the sort of method for reaching out to people? Were you, because of your time living in the UAE and traveling around those areas, were you aware of some of the groups of Muslim women in Switzerland and had connections there? Or did you make those connections when you started undertaking this research? That's a very good question because it was extremely hard to find participants. And I didn't appreciate that. But we're talking about 5% of the Swiss population. So it really is a minority group. And also, I didn't really appreciate at that time how disconnected and Muslim women were within Switzerland because of the language differences between and also stretches culturally and is a barrier in somewhat from people being connected. So, I naively went into the research thinking, I'll find people. Of course I'll find people. I'm well connected. And I only actually managed to find two, I had six participants in total. I only managed to find two participants just through my personal connections. And what ended up happening was that I attended a... Swiss Muslim event for young Swiss people. And that was encouraged to connect people from all different parts of Switzerland. And we all attended a one day event. And that was actually to discuss some of the issues in terms of freedom to practice religion, in terms of within the communities themselves, and to connect people from different linguistic areas as long as cantons. So that was actually how I found participants at the end. entering into that space, I was really conscious that actually that was a safe space for Muslim youth to come together and then I'm kind of entering as an outsider and I don't want to be sticking a paper in someone's face and saying, oh what about this study, because you know there's not that many opportunities for people to connect in that way, but what did end up happening is I was able to make community connections with people and after the event discussed my research and one of a strong community member helped me find participants through that way. So that was so beneficial and it was also beneficial in the way that the topics discussed allowed me to refine my research questions because then I found out because there were different group discussions throughout the day what were the concerns for the Muslim youth. of Switzerland, and I was able to, you know, to experience that firsthand and listen to people's direct experiences. And so in that way, it allowed me to come into my research with a deeper understanding when I was forming my questions. Could you take us through the journey a little bit? So what questions did you end up forming? Did you have, and how did they change from your preconceived questions which you had before you started your participant search? Well, at that point, I didn't really have preconceived questions apart from my research questions, which were quite broad, that I was gonna directly ask the participants because I always wanted to... to be organic and to be participant-led, because at the same time, I wanted to respect individual experiences and also respect that I don't wanna be leading this, because I don't wanna encourage someone to, with any of my biases, to answer in a way that I'm expecting. So I more came up with a range of topics, and they were more to do with, what does it mean to you to be a Muslim woman? How do you... how does this identity show up in your daily life, like on an individual level and a collective level, how do you think you're recognized and what does that mean? And that was my theme throughout my research. And then one of the things that struck me during that I integrated after attending this workshop was the idea. of how people saw themselves as a group, and then how they were perceived by the majority population and this disconnect from the two. And then I was interested if my participants felt that, and how did that affect their lives? And that helped to form themes as well. I was going to say, so what were the big things that you took away? How were people feeling in this like direct aftermath of what was quite a, you know, it sounds like it was quite inflammatory in the way that it was being advertised and stuff like that. What was how were people feeling immediately afterwards? Well, the one thing that I did take away that really surprised me and was people weren't angry. And that really surprised me because I've been to similar workshops in the UK, for example, and I've seen culturally people react in different ways, but it also struck me about how Swiss I found the people that I was attending to the workshop because it was also a networking event. And in my mind, networking, everyone's very chatty, we're all moving around the room, blah, but everyone was very reserved at first. And that made me chuckle a bit because I was like, yeah, I'm used to, you know, going to Islamic countries with Muslim majority populations. So welcoming. So, but then I also forgot that you have this identity of Switzerland and everyone there was born in Switzerland and the stereotype there is you're more reserved. You know, you hold back a bit, you're friendly, but not to the point that, you know, you welcome everyone with open arms. And that. that made me chuckle a bit to myself because I thought, oh my gosh, I have a certain stereotype in my head and I was expecting something. But of course I'm also in Switzerland and this is respecting people's multiple identities in how they interact. And so that was something. And it was extremely... trying to find the right word, but it was... It was very efficient the whole day, again, the Swiss stereotype. And even the way people were, you know, labeling, you know, what could we do? It was very practical. And it wasn't getting caught up in because there was a lot of things that were discussed. I found extremely upsetting. And there was examples of people not being allowed to pray. There was no prayer room in the university. So they would be going to stairs where people were walking up. There was there was no. clean and safe space for them to do this. And you really sit there and you feel something as a human being that I can't believe you're being denied this very basic right that isn't difficult for a university or an institution to provide you with, yet you're being denied that. But instead of kind of centering. on that and the injustice. It was like, but this is what we're doing now to, to progress. And this is how we're, so it was, it was extremely practical, um, in that sense. And that was something that also really inspired me because I found that as much as there was a lot of injustice discussed that way, there was a lot of resolution and how can we move forward how can we come together more, which I found really inspiring. Let's move on to your actual method. So what kind of, how did the interviews actually take place? Cause you said you interviewed six people. Right now you're talking about a whole networking event. How did you wittle it down to six people? Obviously I think there's certain things which kind of want to, don't want to share, but generally how was the whole thing structured? Were they within the six people, were they all from the same community or were they kind of like spread out around Switzerland? How was it? So I was really fortunate in the member that I've met at that event helped me diversify my participant pool. So in fact, I ended up having someone from each of the language reasons, which was really special. And they, I think three of the participants were connected in some way. So I was really... and careful about when I gave the pseudonyms and I also gave the demographic information that I didn't connect the two, because actually three of the participants do know each other and I wanted to respect their anonymity when I published the paper. The interviews actually took place over Zoom because we were still in the after, well, we're still in during the pandemic. So that was the reason why they were all conducted. I had my camera on but the participants could choose to have their camera on or off. One participant chose to have it off but the rest of the women chose to have it on. And I didn't so much as whittle down my participants because in my time frame I had, because I found it so difficult to find participants, six was all I had in the time frame. I was writing my thesis at the time and... I didn't have so long to complete it and I would have loved to have been able to have more participants. There was one lady that came to me right at the end and that was in response to a Facebook post I'd posted a long time before, but she and I'd already done all of the interviews, I'd already typed them all up and she was like, no, please, please. I really, this is a topic I really like to speak on. So I was like, okay, okay. I'm running a bit behind, but we're going to include you because you're so enthusiastic. So that was great. So that's how I came to have my six participants who I really appreciate. Yeah, I was just going to say from a pure researcher statistical side, sometimes people say, because I work with animals and you say five or six animals is not a good amount to use for statistical whatever. And same thing for qualitative research, I feel when you're taking interviews and things. five or six participants might seem small, but the amount of work which you need to put in for each one, because how long were the interviews if I may ask? They averaged just under an hour, but the shortest was 40 minutes and the longest was 90 minutes. But it took me about four hours to transcribe each. I did all the transcription myself. And then you have to remember that many of the women who I was speaking to, it might be English as their second language. So even for me to go back and just really take, okay, what were they meaning when they said this? What were we talking about before because I don't wanna misquote anyone. So when you came to doing the transcribing and started looking at all of the six interviews together, were you noticing the same things that you were noticing at that earlier event, that there was a lack of anger and more resolution, or were the... directions of the conversation different? Was there more of a sadder or frustrated side that came out? It really depended on the participant. And I remember when I was conducting one interview in particular, it was so in my mind, it was so different to the rest of the interviews. And I thought, how am I ever going to find similarities between this particular interview and the other five? As I was interviewing the other five ladies, I was finding similarities already and things would come to my head, which I'd just taken to my mind, but I just take a note of. But this one particular interview was so different, but it was only when I had the transcript in black and white and I was able to go through it and highlight things, I thought actually there are similarities between all six and there are similarities in the themes that I saw that day during the workshop. However, I would say in answer to your question as well, that the emotions were very different depending on the participant. There was one participant in particular that was very politically minded and I could sense the frustration from her. There was another participant that had described an identity crisis and even at the end of our interview, she said, I feel like that... this has been therapy because I never get to, you know, talk about in depth about my identity or belonging or these things in my day to day life. And, and this is just really helped me. And then another participant that I just actually, I named her with the pseudonym nor, which means light because she was just, she was pure light and there was, I couldn't sense any anger or frustration. And like, it was like her reaction to everything was how can I be a better person? And it was really sad because it was almost like, how can I prove people wrong? I know people think X, Y, and Z about me, but this isn't who I am. And I'm actually going to react to that to be the best version that I can. And in a way, you know, that made me feel sad because I thought, you know, the pressure that must be on someone. But in another way, she was pure light and that's why I called her Noor. because having an interview with her was absolutely beautiful and the things that, you know, the things she was describing about her day-to-day life and how she lives. Wow. I feel, I don't know, I'm surprised by some of the reactions there. I definitely, the light makes, finding the light in that situation must be very difficult. And it seems like a lot of personal pressure was probably, she was feeling a lot of that pressure. That's a... That's really interesting. How long did you take after the interviews to go through and find the similarities and draw your conclusions? What was the length of that process like? I wouldn't be able to quote exactly, but I know it was a very long process. Because I was so determined and I also felt quite a pressure because these women had been so generous with their time and also had been so incredibly open with me. I actually couldn't believe how open they had been during their interviews and vulnerable and trusting as well as me. I just felt a pressure to do. their words justice. And that's why in the end I decided to, and again, this was a bit of a last minute decision. At the time, this was only gonna be a thesis. It wasn't intended to be published, right? That even for my thesis where I knew at least three people would read this thesis, I know. I wanted to make sure that the women confirmed my interpretation. So then towards the end, I really had like a two week window. I was like, okay, I need to send them this and see if these ladies will agree with what I said. And four out of the six participants responded and agreed in my interpretation, which I think was really important. Is it, because I know nothing about like this sort of research, is it usual to go back with the research and present? participants with the findings. I don't know if that is or was that a unique practice, I guess, based on the nature of the study? It is a practice that's practiced when possible. And I've spoken to people who do thematic analysis, you know, when I was going into mine and published a few papers, and they said, it's a risk, because you can have even one or two of your participants really not happy with a theme. And then you have to balance that, you know, and maybe write in something that you know, they were this was definitely not the experience of x y and z depending on how many participants you have. So I think it is best practice when it's done, but it's not always practice because of time constraints, which I think is a shame because And I wrote about this in my original thesis, you're actually taking a lot from a community if you're an outside member and you decide to write about a group of people, which you don't really belong to, and you don't provide anything in return, right? There's this feeling that could be also perceived as a real injustice. So that was something I wanted to do. to ensure the ladies got something out of it, that they could read their words and perhaps make sense of their own experiences. And secondly, I also provided a charitable donation because I'm giving charities an important pillar of Islam that they felt like, again, I was invested in their religion as well. And I had more of an investment than just wanted to take from my participants. To answer Alex's question further, Dr. Tia Neha came on and she does work in, she does Kaupapa Māori research. So Māori are the indigenous group in New Zealand. And she talks about that of like trying to change how psychology was treated these people from the outside versus doing something which builds up the community or some way of giving back to the community. So she also mentioned the same thing. And a few other researchers who we've had on who speak about qualitative stuff, say the same thing that it was practiced a lot less before, but now the practice is like increasing and yeah, as Rachel mentioned, um, the aspect of sometimes it can be very hard because you might be, I guess. lack of better terms, pissing off a few people if you don't get the thing right, but it's probably better off to go back and take slightly longer and do it right than the other way around. So yeah, just more context to your question of if it's practiced. Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah, I guess I'm really interested in what... What were the things you really concluded from the research? What were the interesting connections that you found? And yeah, what was the end process like, I guess? Well, it was really interesting because of my six participants, and I didn't do this purposely. It's just how my participants came to me. Three of the ladies wore the hijab. And when I'm describing hijab, because hijab can be referred to just the practice of dressing modestly, but typically in the Western context, we refer to it as the headscarf. So three of my participants wore a headscarf and three didn't. And one of the interesting things that came out of it was the difference that made to the participants in their day-to-day life. And then the theme that I encapsulated, that was religion as a public versus private identity. And in some ways, they were positives to it. The ladies that didn't wear the hijab described that they didn't really feel fearful of any discrimination. And they didn't feel like they were being watched or they weren't being just recognized as Muslim women. They were more freedom in, there was more freedom in different identities and expressions. However, there was also some frustration that Muslim women can, you can also be a Muslim woman and not wear the headscarf. There is a diversity, like just in every other religion, in how you practice. So that was really interesting. And then on the other side, the ladies that did wear the hijab and how they described that they were almost treated as like ambassadors of Islam. if they said something that people's perceptions were perceived that was not in line with Islam, that was really bizarre. And that was kind of like essentializing, like reducing their identity down to just one component when they were, you know, just like everyone, we're multifaceted, we have lots of different aspects of identity. And so that was really interesting. Yeah, I'm so glad that you started with that because I had just listed down the headings from your results section to ask about each theme and you spoke about the public versus private identity. The next point which you put up there is Islam and dressing modestly as an expression of gender deliberation. Do both of those, I know you separated them, but do both those tie in together as well? Like you said, the ones who did... did not practice the Western concept of the hijab. They didn't feel as washed, they didn't feel as ambassadors of the religion as those who did. So does that also tie into liberation as well? Did you separate them because they were two independent kind of concepts you're talking about? Well, with all my themes, I always think there's so much crossover, it's so hard to distinguish them. But with... Islam and dressing modestly as expressions of gendered liberation. That was really chosen to encapsulate how the women who wore the hijab in particular chose to express their female identity and for them covering or also for the ladies who did not dress modestly, that was an act of femininity That's often sadly in contrast to, well, the proponents of the, of the Burka ban, for instance, that's in contrast to the whole argument of women being oppressed and forced to wear it. Actually, that was their choice. And in dress, in choosing to dress in this way, that was an act of liberation for them. And... I was actually quite struck just on a personal level, although I didn't include it in my research, that that's also a really brave thing to do. If you're living in a country where that's thought of as a certain way and that's a symbol of something, you know, that no one wants to be thought of as oppressed, but you choose because of your relationship with your religion and because of your beliefs, you choose to defy that. and go out every single day, knowing that people may have biases and prejudice towards you for no other reason than some clothing. That's incredibly brave. And in stepping into that courage and bravery, I imagine that's also incredibly liberating to do. So yeah, that was along that theme. um, the perception of this, these items of clothing as oppressive, and then actually for it to be the other way around as it's a liberating choice is really a fascinating conclusion that I don't think the proponents of the ban would have expected. And maybe, yeah, I don't know. I don't know if it would make them reconsider their position, but you can hope maybe, um, that they could see it from a different perspective. Yeah. to try and liberate a group by enforcing a restriction on them. You know, and this kind of, this wasn't lost on the participants, you know, how ridiculous this argument is. And that, you know, when you live in a country in Europe, there's laws to protect people from being, you know, abused in a way and being told to what to wear and things like this in terms of, you know, the argument that women are forced to wear this by men. So yeah, that wasn't lost on the participants, like how ridiculous this argument actually was. Wow. Do you think, so because you've lived in more Middle Eastern countries, you've traveled the Middle East quite a lot. I feel the idea of the ban or the idea of this being an oppressive thing comes from some of the laws which you see in such countries. So for example, when I went to Iran last year, women had to have a headscarf on at all times. So things like that. So I saw everybody, so I was in this flight and as the flight landed, all the women started putting headscarves on which they didn't earlier. So do you think that the oppressive idea comes from like overall laws from certain countries more than yet each individual? I've also experienced that when I've traveled to Iran. It's very interesting to, and obviously I was one of the ladies donning the head scarf. And I think it actually, it goes deeper than that. And I think this is a stereotype that's existed for centuries. And it comes from a very Orientalism perspective that, you know, it's, it's a very othering that sees a group of people as as more barbaric and another group of people as more superior. And this is why, because they do this and this and this is how they treat their women and these people are oppressed. But we are enlightened because we act in a certain way. And of course, the argument of, you know, telling women what to wear, you can also use it in Iran, right? That there shouldn't be a law, legislation on women's dress. regardless of the country, you know, because when we really boil down to it, that's what we're legislating right now is what women can wear. And it's the same whether you're in Switzerland or it's the same whether you're in Iran, there's a restriction. Like either you have to wear a certain garment or you have to, you're not allowed to. And I think we saw that in European countries with the bikini where, you know, police were actually going up to women and telling them to undress. And it really is that ridiculous. And when I kind of think about it on that level, like it's a feminist issue and it's a worldwide issue. So I really do see it as two at the same. If you go to a country and you're enforced to cover or wear a certain garment, or if you go to a country and you're equally enforced to remove that same garment, it's part of the same argument. That's how I see it anyway. Yeah, there's definitely a freedom of expression sort of element there, right? And religious freedom or other sorts of freedom, I guess, there as well. Now, unlike Sahir, I haven't read through the whole paper, but I noticed in the abstract you mentioned that the findings are presented as guidance towards counselors who work in Switzerland. And so that seems like a really practical... application or sort of a very practical end to the research. Why did you choose to do, to present it specifically to counsellors and what are you hoping changes or is adjusted in their practice when they're working with a Muslim woman post this ban? And in terms of because actually, when I first approached this idea to Liza, and that she, she said to me, that's, that's a great idea, but you need to make it very relevant to your master's degree. And I said, Absolutely. But to me, these themes and any political accent that targets a group is relevant. because if we think of it in a very upstream process, like I don't want to be a counselor that just catches people down the end of the stream and sees all of these mental health disorders as a result of discrimination, of oppression, because we know that. And if we look at any research finding, we know that these are great risks to people's mental health. So I don't just want to be catching people at the end. I want to be on the upstream and I want to be making difference. at the very beginning so people don't have to endure that to later seek help. And so that was an inspiration in terms of that. And then I also thought that often, and I saw that during my internship process, there was actually a lady that was interned in the same time as me that brought to our supervision, one of her clients was debating, she was actually born and you have to think a lot of people in Switzerland are born. from outside of Switzerland or there's a lot of migrants, immigrants that come to live in Switzerland. So it was a very diverse range of people. And she was contemplating, and that was one of the themes of her session, shall I wear my hijab? I'm going into a professional space after I finish my qualification, and is this going to restrict me in the space that I'm going to professionally? So it was also already coming up. in my internships. And so I thought that would be a very practical part of my research. Obviously, I had to, but equally, I think for my fellow counselors, it could be very beneficial. Yeah, that fits nicely into the two things which I wanted to talk about because they align with advice to counsellors. One is your results point where you mention religious and cultural identity as psychological strengths which, so I'm assuming that is in line with advice for counsellors to use when interacting with, I guess, people from different religious and cultural identities. And the other one was the Swiss identity. um say uh the idea the sharing this of sharing the sense of swiss identity and sameness um because i guess that also fits into your your advice to counselors more than uh in the same sort of way because you're kind of juggling their own cultural identity religious identity and i guess the swiss culture identity as well and the regions within switzerland and their specific identities um yeah Could you enlighten us about what you saw in these regards in your research and what kind of outcomes you think would help counsellors? Yeah, in regards to strengths, I think one thing I found is working as a counsellor, identities can be a huge strength in the counselling room. And often, and I wrote this in my paper, like we as counsellors were always asked to check our own beliefs and our own values, our own biases, because we all have them. And one thing in regards to this, you know, orientalist perspective, we are fed through media, through the films we watch, through the conversations we have, through the news that's how the news is framed. We are all processing this information. So whether we think explicitly we have these prejudices, we do. they can be internalized by us, but they can also be internalized by our clients, even if they belong to this particular group. And in terms of assessing these identities as strengths, is that you can really draw on the strength of an identity of the person, and that can become their strength through hardship, that can become their resilience. I'm just gonna give like a... And example of someone I was seeing not so long ago, who was from a very working class background. And that can be seen in a negative way or a positive light, you know, that can restrict your opportunities in life. But also the way he framed it was like he was tough, because his dad did this job, which was very manual. And he's from a long line of, you know, very tough men that go to work and they do that. And when he was... during a depressed state, that really helped him to push on because he was saying, I am this person and I am, and I come from a line of these people and this is, this is how we've dealt with issues in the past. And that can really push someone forward. So in a way it was really highlighting that, especially with an identity that through public perception and through perhaps media is diminished often. or is portrayed in a bad light, to draw on the strength of that identity, what does that mean to you? What have you been taught about being this specific identity? And how can this help you now through what you're facing at the moment through this adversity? And that came out really strongly during the interviews. And in terms of the sameness sharing, a sense of Swiss identity through sameness is also recognizing that no one is just one thing. So even if you're drawing on this one identity and that's very strong and that's giving you resilience and that's really keeping you up at this time, you're never just one thing. So also recognizing that in a room with someone, not focusing just solely on what you see in a person, which is... often with Muslim women, if they have the headscarf, people just stop seeing anything else. There's more to anyone than just one single identity. So it was kind of integrating the two. But yes, identity can be used as a really strong foundation and a strength, but equally, we never want to reduce anyone to a single part of themselves. We want to recognize that there's multiple layers to everyone. I think that studies like this, I can totally see how they would be really beneficial to counselors who are working with these really intersecting identities and maybe identities that are like, you know, like you mentioned, the 5% of the total population of Switzerland, you know, quite a minority. And so they might not have a huge amount of experience in working with. people from this background. And I think I can totally see how having an understanding of how those identities compound and build off each other and how they make up a person could definitely shape that sort of practice and how you are working with someone to help in situations where they need it. Do you think this process has changed a lot of how you go about your counselling work? Did you learn anything about your own practice? that surprised you or caught you off guard, I guess? I think it was really a good opportunity for me to really... question my own biases as well. And I think I'm really lucky that, you know, I'm fortunate that I lived in the Middle East. I've been also the, I've been from a city in Wales, Cardiff, which is very multicultural. So I've been, I was so fortunate I was exposed to all different cultures throughout my life. But also some things during the interviews surprised me. And then that provided me with an opportunity to reflect on, okay, why did that surprise me? You know, what was my belief then that this person was going to say? Why would that surprise me? And I know one thing in particular that was so interesting when a participant surprised, I thought, oh my gosh, I do that. She wears the hijab and she said that naturally, she notices since she started wearing the hijab, that people take a step back from her. People don't come too close. And she said that was an along the lines of offering her protection and she liked that. And that particularly men didn't. And I was like, okay. And then when I thought about it, I think I thought, actually, I'm so used to seeing women wearing all sorts of religious garments when I was in the UAE. And I take a step back. And even how I approach someone is different. And why is that? And is Why am I doing that? So there was a lot of things in regards to like very personally, and then regarding my counseling space and sessions, I really think it strengthened my idea which I already had that actually belonging and identity are really important concepts in a counseling room. And not to the point to just skirt around, but explicitly. mention, you know, like what, what communities do you feel you belong to? We all need to be connected, right? And, and what is your identity? What do you stand for? What are your values? And exploring those with people can really help people through, through some tough times. Um, so that, so that's what I took from it. Wow. Yeah, definitely. I can see how you have to reassess your own position after going through like a A research process like this, and it's interesting how even after. So long, I mean, I grew up in Singapore and even still, I always I have my own biases from cultural, you know. What would you call it things that I've been exposed to and then having to assess why I think in certain ways it's an ongoing process. Right? Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. Apart from these, are there any things in the paper so far which we haven't covered, or any other themes or topics you want to talk about? We haven't mentioned the title quote of sorry the quote in the title which is liberty can be for you one thing and for me something different. So would you like to go on about that a little bit? So explain which part where which Was the theme similar across all your participants? I love that quote. And that came from my very politically minded participant, which probably doesn't come as a surprise. And that quote came about after we were speaking specifically about the Burka ban. And she was just emphasizing there that there's so many ways to express your female identity. This is not one way. There's not just the Western idea of what a female liberated woman is. And I loved I love that quote. And actually, I decided it wasn't in my original thesis as the title, but I decided when I condensed the thesis that it was more relevant. And so that's how that one came about. And I'm sorry, I don't remember if you had another question there. No, that was it. The other question was essentially, is there anything which I have not covered which from the thesis which you would like to? I think two important ones that we didn't cover yet were challenging dominant representations and this connected and impression management. And the challenging dominant representations was really about recognising know, the stereotype about you and the women were very aware of what the stereotype was of being oppressed, of being unhappy, of being... Sometimes you have constricting stereotypes of one being threatening and the other being oppressed. So they were very aware of these negative stereotypes about them. But then they described how they defy and they challenge these stereotypes in their that wasn't even intentional. And I love one of the quotes, which I was actually pressured to take out, but I don't want to take it out. Because it was for one of my participants that probably struggled more to express themselves in English than the other participants. And she just described an instance in her work where she was saving Ferrera Rocher for her husband. And her manager asked her like, Oh, why aren't you eating the chocolates now? And she said, Oh, no, because me and my husband, we always eat sweet things together in the evening, like that's our tradition. And then she was explaining a bit more about her husband and her manager commented that, Oh, I didn't realize, you know, that you were in love with your husband, and then it came like a long conversation about. Yeah, we're very much in love. And the perception was that she would have had an arranged marriage and she wouldn't be in a happy marriage. You know, and it was just like this simple act of her just taking these two chocolates and, you know, holding them back for her and her husband. Came this very deep conversation where she, it was like where her boss explicitly mentioned, you know, this stereotype that she was holding and this belief she was holding, which was completely wrong. about this person. So that's how the women were challenging stereotypes in their everyday life, sometimes not even intentionally. Wow. Yeah. Wow. I just can't, I can't believe that. That's such an interesting thing to come about from some sweets. Exactly. And it probably changed the manager's perspective quite a bit, I imagine. Hopefully. Yeah, you would hope so. Yeah, so I found that interesting. And then again, with the impression management, and that was kind of a theme that encapsulated how the women would monitor their behavior and in public spaces. And again, that was to do with challenging and negative stereotypes. And that was particularly strong, if they were wearing the hijab, because they recognize that people recognize them as Muslim women. Therefore, they're a representative. in every public space that they enter, whether they choose to be or not. That's how they're perceived by others. So people would monitor it. And it was discussed as like a positive thing sometimes that, you know, this actually encourages me to be a better person because of this very symbolic garment that I'm wearing. I'm encouraged to be my best self and to act in a way that Islam teaches me. But then there was also the impression management that there was one participant in particular and she chose not to wear her hijab and she was worried about even going to the mosque because she worked in a small community, she was a teacher and just by looking at her no one would know she's a Muslim woman but she was concerned that people might know and then because they know they would attach. certain negative stereotypes to her that she doesn't have right now, and it could affect her day-to-day life. So she chose not to wear an abaya during Ramadan, which she's previously done in different countries, and she chose not to go to the mosque. And she even has, in the interview, she kind of talks herself up, like, I've told to myself, I've said to myself, come on, like, take yourself to the mosque, like, especially during, you know, religious holidays. But that... was her impression management because she was so worried about what other people would perceive her to be and any connections they may make because of these stereotypes that she, that were restricting her identity. No, I find that a very common battle among my friends. So I did high school in India, and then everybody's a lot of people have gone overseas. I met Anna and I have friends who come when we did undergrad here who've come from Indonesia have come from Maldives. And then they changed their behaviors completely to what it would have been back home or, or in well some maintain them some alter them. so on and so forth, and then they change them back when they go back. And they all mention different reasons for it. Some say because they don't feel comfortable doing it here, others. Yeah, but it echoes the same sentiments of that fear of being judged in negative ways, particularly. And it's interesting with the research regarding that, right? Because why it is so such an important topic is because We know that identity expression is also linked to affirmative mental health. So the freedom to express your identity and the identity reduction is again linked to maladaptive mental health. So this, even though sometimes it seems like a superficial thing, not so much in the instances we're talking about, but it can be in terms of identity restriction, that actually it can have... you know, negative repercussions and it is important to have that freedom of expression. I think your work is more than just advice to counselors. I think it's just advice to everyone. And that note, because we've been recording for an hour, can we talk about some of the other conclusions that you had? Were there any broader conclusions you'd like to talk about from your work? Because I think we've gone through a background of methods, of results, your key themes. and about counselors, but were there any other key conclusions you wanted to talk about? I think we've covered them, I think. Most of them, yeah, through conversation. That's awesome. In that case, because Europe's general asked me to do this, I will need to put you on the spot for a two or three minute spiel where you kind of give a verbal abstract, a verbal summary of your paper so that we can clip it out and use it. I know we've been talking about it for an hour, so this is like a condensed kind of key thing. So we'll give you the floor and maybe you can give, if anybody had only a minute or two minutes to like quickly listen to what you had to say or what the paper was about. Yeah, a two minute thesis per se. Floor is yours. Okay, Ro, you're not going to lie about putting me on the spot. And so this... paper is exploring identity construction and sense of belonging of Muslim women in Switzerland. It was written in the aftermath of the so-called Burka ban, which was a ban on public face coverings in 2021. However, it's nicknamed the Burka ban because it focused on Muslim women's garments, in particular the niqab and the burka. And it's exploring how women construct their, Muslim women in Switzerland construct their identity and how they also experience a sense of belonging. And the themes that I found in relation to identity construction was religion as a public versus private identity. And this theme encapsulates the difference in treatment between women who wore the hijab and women who did not. and the women who wore the hijab were publicly recognized as only Muslim women, and in contrast the participants who did not and were reported that their religious identity was often not acknowledged by others. And then we had Islam and dressing modestly as expressions of gendered liberation and that was in contrast to the oppressed Muslim women's stereotype. The women reported that their faith and decision to dress modestly. felt liberating and that liberation was discussed in relation to their gendered identity. And then also sharing a sense of Swiss identity through sameness and the participants described sharing a sense of Swiss identity through sameness and sameness was defined as sharing cultural traits and experiences. And then regards to belonging, there was challenging dominant representation and this theme described how the women defied and... challenge negative dominant representations in their everyday life, and then religious and cultural identity as psychological strengths, which was when the interviews felt at ease discussing their strengths, and sometimes they were attributed to the woman's Islamic faith and others through hardships they faced as a minority group, and also impression management, where the participants reported monitoring their behaviour to challenge negative stereotypes and fit into the dominant society. Awesome. A little bit longer than two minutes. I'm sorry. No, no, that's great. That's a very hard thing to do. I could not do that. I could not do that with my work. That was very impressive. So that's the whole thing. The last thing which we do, we do it with every guest. And it has nothing to do with your research. It's just... is this general a few rapid fire questions. I should actually send Alex these so he can ask the other half of them. Yes, we haven't done this online yet. Yeah, we haven't done this online. We had this in person. So one sec. So it's more on the spot answers. But they're all fun ones looking for short answers first thing that comes to your mind sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah, I've really enjoyed the discussion about your research, though. I think it's really, really interesting. And I'm moving to Europe next year, and it'll be very, very interesting to see how some of these attitudes or opinions might persist and see what local groups – I'm moving to Austria – what local groups in Austria might be doing, or how they express themselves as well. Yeah. Very cool. And considering this journal… comes out in February might already be in Glasgow by then. So yeah, we're coming to your side and you moved away to the state. To get away from both of you. Wow. Just a joke. That was some forward thinking moving before you even met us. She noticed if we asked her these questions online, what we're going to ask in person. Yeah. Um. All right. Have you sent them through to me? Yeah, they're on just a messenger. I just send them through on messenger. Great. All right. Cool. I've got them here. All right. So you go first then. You can ask the first one. Okay. All right. Question number one, summer or winter? Summer, definitely. Movies or TV shows? TV shows. Cats or dogs? What superpower would you like to have? I'd love to be invisible. Um, what's your favorite food or cuisine? Oh, that's the hardest question you've asked me the whole podcast. Um, I think probably Indian. Hmm. Nice. All right. Um, if you were a pizza topping, what pizza topping would you be and why? Uh-huh. This is a question I've never thought about it in my whole entire life. Cheese, because I think it can adapt to every other topping. That's a great answer. Yeah. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would that be? Where I am right now. Nice. San Diego, California. It's incredible here. It is lovely over there. Yeah. What's something stupid someone's tricked you into doing or believing? There's probably a lot of things. Too many to think of. Let me try and think. I think I was once conned by, you know, a street market seller in Barcelona. And I believe that these little puppets, if you played music, they would dance by themselves. And I have no idea how I thought that mechanism would work. But then I took them home and I played play and obviously they didn't dance by themselves because they can't do that. I love that. If you were not doing this, what would you be doing? So if you weren't doing counselling, what would you be doing? I think I'd be working, and I used to actually, work in customer service in some shape or capacity because I love to be of service to others. That's my, and I think counselling is similar to that. I worked in customer service, did not like it one bit. Couldn't wait for it to end. No, it's not the easiest role in the world. But sometimes even when it was hard, I would use my psychology sometimes like, OK, how can I get this person by the end of their time here to say sorry for what they just did to me? I play psychological mind games. It's amazing. I did do this really fun thing once though, where someone asked me if I could go get the manager and I walked into the room and walked out again and said, Hi, I'm the manager. I've always wanted to do that, but I was never the managers. I think. That's cool. And what was their reaction? They weren't very happy, but they couldn't do anything about it, right? But they were being a dick as well, so they deserved it. Yeah. But yeah. All right. The very last question for you is if you could leave us, our audience, everyone with one piece of advice, what would it be? I think in terms of belonging, essentially as well, just picking one of the themes that we all have the capacity to make others, peoples feel that they belong and that to never underestimate how important that is to people because really, identity and belonging, they're very intertwined. They're one of the same thing. And we do have more influence, I think, than we believe. Hmm. Very sound advice. That's very good. Yeah. No. Oh, that's awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you. That was great. Alex, any final words? That was fantastic. Yeah, I just want to say thank you for sharing your research. It was really, really interesting to hear your perspectives, your processes and the sort of things that you learned from these, the six amazing women that you spoke to. Yeah, thank you so much for sharing and breaking that down for me. And obviously everyone else listening who hasn't read your work before. Looking forward to seeing the work published when this episode goes live. Thank you. And thank you for providing You know, often you would spend a lot of time doing the research and writing the paper, and then there's always a worry that no one's ever going to read it. So it's really nice to be given platforms like this, as well as, you know, the open access that the journal has to ensure it can reach a wider audience too. Cause I think it's important what my participants had to say. So, yeah. Yeah. So thanks to the Europe Journal of Psychology. Thanks, uh, Rachel for coming on. Thanks everyone for listening. Rachel, I need you to stay on for like 30 seconds after we end. But yeah, awesome. Thanks, everyone. Take care. Bye. All right.