The Halal Way of Clubbing: A Study of Second-Generation Muslim Youth’s Resistance and the Subculture It Has Generated

Abstract

This study examined two second-generation Muslim youth clubs in the city of Ottawa. First-generation mosques and community centres have ample space for youth. Still, as a form of defiance against their parents, these youth have created youth clubs outside of Ottawa’s residential areas. The clubs had devised an original form of ‘fun’ for themselves, which, despite being ‘halal’, was not approved by their parents and thus represented a form of resistance against them. These youth clubs have exacerbated tensions within the Muslim community in Canada. This article contends that a Muslim youth subculture is emerging among second-generation immigrants, which is consistent with aspects of the Birmingham School and post-subcultural theories. Steve Redhead argues that today’s youth continue to resist not through style but by ‘lengthy clubbing’. A total of 26 young women and men were interviewed alongside 10 months of fieldwork.

Introduction

Muslim immigrants of the first generation lead most mosques and Islamic centres in Canada. These centres are ill-equipped to meet the needs of the majority of second-generation Canadian-born and -raised children. On the one hand, young Canadian Muslims must contend with their Islamic culture and the cultural backgrounds of their parents, while on the other, they are constantly interacting with Canadian culture. The recent development of youth-founded and -run Canadian Muslim youth clubs illustrates the generational divide.

First-generation mosques and community centres have ample space for youth. Still, these young people have created youth clubs outside of the residential areas of different cities in Canada as a form of defiance against their parents. I encountered two youth clubs at the initial phase of my fieldwork, but by the time I finished the project, I became aware of another Muslim youth club in Montreal and two clubs in Toronto that ran independently of their parent organizations. These youth clubs have exacerbated tensions between the first and second generations, as well as within the Muslim community as a whole. These youths, who are currently university students, now work at different low-paid jobs alongside their studies to manage both their education and their independence from first-generation centres by paying the club’s rent. They hold none of their events or programmes at first-generation centres and mosques, even though this would not require a fee. This research investigated the cultural, social, and religious characteristics or drivers responsible for forming these formal/informal institutions, as well as the obstacles these youths face when implementing independent programmes. This article examines how youth clubs are a major protective factor for youth and argues that among second-generation Canadian Muslim youth, a new religious youth subculture, which I name ‘Muslim Youth Cave Subculture’ that has its own style, resistance, and religiosity, is emerging. In addition to participant observation, semi-structured interviews with 26 participants were used to gain a deeper understanding of the participants’ motivations, attitudes, and perceptions. According to Patrick Williams, the subfield of subcultures prefers to study resistance to power. ‘Resistance’ is the refusal to accept or comply with a concept or idea and the act of fighting against something. The term is typically employed to resist authority or a higher power (Cambridge Dictionary). Resistance and power are ambiguous and complicated terms. In the following pages, these two words are further discussed. Brake contends that many youth subcultures emerge as a result of the contradictions they observe in their parents’ cultures (Redhead, 1997, p. 34). This article examines the concept of resistance in two Muslim youth clubs in Ottawa, Canada that are formed and run by second-generation Muslim youth, the men’s and women’s clubs, without adult supervision or assistance.

To understand the different layers of resistance within the youth clubs, the interviews were primarily based on questions about the participants’ motivations for creating and attending the clubs, the activities they participated in, and the challenges they faced with first-generation centres and mosques, as well as the difficulties in maintaining the clubs’ operations. Also, questions were asked regarding the advantages and disadvantages of being a member of a second-generation Muslim community in Canada and also living among the general Canadian public.

This article explains the Birmingham School and post-subcultural theories, two of the most influential schools of thought in the subculture’s subfield, and their perspectives on resistance. Also, how and if the resistance types in these two youth clubs fit or do not fit Birmingham School and subcultural theories. The concept of a minority within a minority and its relationship to Erving Goffman’s theory are also elaborated upon.

Muslims in Canada

According to the 2011 National Household Survey, 1,053,945 Muslims lived in Canada (Statistics Canada, 2011 National Household Survey). The Muslim population increased from 2% of the Canadian population in 2001 to 3.2% in 2011. Almost seven out of 10 Muslims were born in another country (World Population Review, Canada Population 2015). The growth of the Muslim population has especially been rapid from the 1970s until today, leading to the formation of various ethnic community centres and numerous mosques in Canada. Islam was Canada’s second most common religion in 2021, after Christianity, with nearly 1.8 million people, or 1 in 20. In 20 years, the percentage of Muslims in Canada has more than doubled, from 2% in 2001 to 4.9% in 2021 (The Canadian Census, 2022).

Moreover, the National Household Survey indicates that the Muslim population is set to grow even further. The Pew Research Center, which conducts surveys on religion and public life, has estimated that the Muslim population in Canada will triple by the next 20 years, going from 940,000 in 2010 to nearly 2.7 million in 2030. Muslims are the fastest-growing religious group in Canada, and after Christians, they are the second-largest religious group in the country (Ramji, 2008, p. 105). About two-thirds of Muslims in the US are first-generation, and around one-third are native-born. This number is set to increase significantly. The Pew Research Center estimates that by 2030, 44.9% of Muslims in the United States will be native-born (Hamdani, 2004, p. 4).

Most Muslims in Canada identify themselves as South Asian, Middle Eastern, West Asian, or North African (Ramji, 2008, p. 104). Most of them live in Ontario; however, where they live in Canada is also based on their ethnic backgrounds. For example, most Muslims in Quebec are from Morocco, Algeria, and other African countries, while the ones living in Ontario are mainly from Pakistan, Somalia, and Bangladesh (Riley, 2011, p. 3). Nevertheless, Muslims in Canada come from very diverse backgrounds. They originate from more than 85 nations and comprise dozens of racial and linguistic groups (Moghissi et al., 2009, p. 84). The majority of Muslims in Canada are Sunni Muslims. Still, there are Shia, Ismaili, Druze, and Sufi communities across Canada as well (Zine, 2012, p. 6). The great diversity of Muslims in the West is perfectly summed up in the quote below:

Does a secular Ugandan man of Indian Muslim ancestry have commonality with a practicing Shia woman from Iraq or Pakistan, or a non-practicing Muslim woman coming from former-Soviet Azerbaijan with a Sufi Muslim female from rural Pakistan, or both of them with a secular Iranian woman, or the devout Wahhabi/Hanbali man from Saudi Arabia?. (Moghissi et al., 2009, p. 11)

According to Zine, a large portion of North American research focuses on first-generation immigrants. Second-generation immigrants, however, are given less consideration (Zine 2012, p. 2). Therefore, it is crucial to conduct research on Muslims who are second-generation immigrants.

Methodology

Second-generation Canadians are those born in the country but have at least one parent born abroad. For this article, I spent 10 months participating in two youth clubs in Ottawa (the Ottawa Men’s Club and the Ottawa Women’s Club) and conducting semi-structured interviews with the clubs’ founders, executives, and members. A total of 26 young people, consisting of 13 young women and 13 young men, were interviewed. The participants ranged between 19 and 25 years of age, and all were university students. The membership of the men’s club was 50–55, while the membership of the women’s club was 30–35. The consent forms were placed at the end of the two clubs, and the members themselves decided if they wanted to participate in the study.

In the discipline of anthropology, participant observation is a well-known methodology. Instead of relying solely on what individuals say, participant observation enables the researcher to understand what people are actually doing. James Spradley explains that ethnography means learning from people rather than studying them (Spradley, 1980, p. 7). Semi-structured interviews alongside participant observation give the researcher a deeper understanding. Also, participant observation facilitates the process of gaining youths’ trust to conduct research with them. A semi-structured interview is a qualitative data collection technique wherein the researcher poses a series of planned in advance yet open-ended questions to informants. Compared to unstructured interviews, the researcher has more control over the interview topics. However, unlike structured interviews or questionnaires with closed-ended questions, each question in an interview has no set range of possible answers (Wishkoski, 2020, p. 89). The degree of relevance it offers the subject while still being receptive to the participant sets it apart from other interview techniques (Bartholomew et al., 2000, p. 288).

Subsequently, semi-structured and in-depth interviews with open-ended and follow-up questions generate a deeper understanding of the participants’ motivations, attitudes, and perceptions. This method facilitates the development of empathy through participants’ shared experiences. Participant observation can be utilized to improve the study’s validity since observations may give the researcher a more precise knowledge of the situation and phenomenon being investigated. When additional techniques are employed with observation, such as interviews, document analysis, surveys, questionnaires, or other more quantitative approaches, validity is increased. Participant observation can be used to develop theories, produce or test hypotheses, and assist with answering descriptive research questions (Kawulich, 2005, p. 10).

Description of the Club

Before continuing, it is necessary to describe the youth club from an anthropological standpoint. The Ottawa Women’s Club held its events on Thursday evenings in the exact location as the men’s club, which met on Saturday nights from 9 pm to 3 am. The club’s location was in an industrial and commercial district. No single residential apartment was in the neighbourhood; instead, numerous cars were parked next to greyish industrial buildings. The front of the youth club featured a massive garage door that appeared inactive for quite some time. The club was a rectangular, open space. All the walls were painted a dark blue, which was immediately noticeable. The club featured pool and ping-pong tables in addition to a massive television. When you entered, it was immediately apparent that it had been converted from a garage or warehouse into a youth club. As Steve Redhead explains in his book, Subcultures to Clubcultures, warehouses have been utilized extensively for youth gatherings, symbolizing the lack of available space in postmodern societies. He claims that football stadiums, shopping malls, subways, and train stations are increasingly subject to intensive surveillance. He also notes that young people seek out warehouses to ‘have fun’ in them (Redhead, 1997, p. 59). To gain the trust of the men’s club, I used a common technique in anthropology to gain young men’s trust, which is to go there as a mother figure, and these young men would know you as a mother rather than a young female researcher (Brown & Masi de Casanova, 2009, p. 42). That is why I took my 2-year-old daughter with me at the beginning of the research. Even during the interviews, I was seen as a mother figure, and my daughter’s presence during the fieldwork broke the ice. It should be noted that, despite the fact that these young men looked up to me as a mother, I was not from their parents’ generation; my age difference from theirs was only 10 or so years. My friend was there to introduce me to club members the first time I attended the women’s club, which helped me build trust with the group.

Theoretical Framework

The Birmingham and post-subcultural schools are the two primary subcultural theoretical schools of thought. The concept of resistance is one of the central points of contention for both schools of thought. Migrations, economic change, industrialization, and other rapid changes that caused instability, unemployment, and poverty were the original causes of subculture formation. Urbanization and social disorganization produce subcultures (Haenfler, 2014, p. 4). After World War II, youth cultures changed for various reasons, as they had more leisure time and leisure activities. Compared to the years preceding the war, the working class decreased, and the number of middle-class youths increased. After World War II, scholars at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) in the United Kingdom studied youth cultures. The central ideas of CCCS are resistance and style.

In contrast to the Chicago school, which asserts that youth are subject to the pressures of society to conform to the norm, the Birmingham school contends that youth resist these pressures and develop their voice. This resistance is evident in their fashion, musical tastes, and other aspects of their lives.

The CCCS theory argues that there is a generational gap between parents and children, which is why children resist their parents’ culture, which is a very pertinent aspect of this article (Bennett & Kahn-Harris, 2004, p. 6). Recent post-subcultural theory has assisted in shifting the emphasis from the political dimension and social class of subcultures to young people constructing their identities through fun and leisure (Anderson, 2009, p. 13). Post-subcultural theory was first introduced by Steve Redhead (1990) at Manchester University and then expanded upon by Muggleton in later years (1997 and 2000). Redhead viewed subcultures through the lens of post-modernism. Redhead argues that youth have more free time in the modern world compared to the post-World War II era, which is the primary reason for the emergence of a new ‘club culture’ (Bennett & Kahn-Harris, 2004, p. 14). It should be noted that, contrary to the Birmingham School, participation in a subculture is a matter of choice for these youth, as post-subcultural theories have argued (Haenfler, 2014, 13). In contrast to the CCCS theory, post-subculture scholars assert that the goods and items utilized by youth are more closely associated with consumerism than with pure acts of resistance. In CCCS, resistance is indirect and manifested through styles, whereas post-subcultural theories assert that resistance in contemporary subcultures is direct and manifested through clubbing and ‘extreme forms of enjoyment’. Post-subcultural theories contend that the concept of style, an ‘everyday’ style in contemporary subcultures, is in no way connected to their resistance. Consequently, the Birmingham School introduced the presence of resistance in subcultures, but post-subcultural theorists added a twist. This article’s theoretical framework comprises insights from the CCCS School and Post-Subcultural theories, specifically Steve Redhead’s concept of club culture.

The definition of ‘resistance’ is the refusal to accept or comply with a concept or idea and the act of fighting against something. The term is typically employed to resist authority or a higher power. A similar definition of resistance is ‘a clandestine organization that fights and refuses to accept something’ (Cambridge Dictionary). When discussing subcultures, the issue of resistance is especially important. Dick Hebdige, for instance, contends that the majority of subcultures ‘threaten the older way’ (Hebdige, 1976, p. 77). This article argues that there are multiple levels of resistance in the two studied clubs, including resistance to parents’ cultures and organizations, as well as Canadian nightclub and bar culture. It should also be noted that the clubs have similarities and differences in terms of what and whom they oppose. Specifically, both clubs shared resistance to their parents’ culture and religion as well as first-generation religious centres. The women’s club resisted not having a sheikh or imam, whereas the Ottawa men’s club had a permanent sheikh who was himself a second-generation Muslim. The men’s club had a sheikh from the start who was their friend. The clubs’ founders, who were second-generation immigrants themselves, both men and women, indicated that the clubs should have some religious themes to them. However, the women’s club took turns discussing religious topics and discussions for a half-hour, and they rebelled against the founders’ desire to have a permanent sheikh and instead offered to give short lectures.

As explained in detail in the following sections, the two clubs exhibited significant opposition to their parent’s culture and first-generation organizations and centres, as well as Canadian night clubs.

Before examining these youths’ tensions, it is important to discuss the concept of sites of resistance. There are numerous sites and dimensions for youth resistance. These include youth spaces such as clubs, bodies as sites of resistance for style subcultures such as those mentioned by CCCS, abandoned spaces such as old buildings, state-controlled public places such as streets, and even private spaces such as homes for certain subcultures such as the riot girls (Smith, 1998, p. 292).

Resistance

Resistance used to be a relatively straightforward category, one half of a seemingly straightforward binary, dominance versus resistance. Dominance was a relatively stable and institutionalized form of power; resistance essentially consisted of organized opposition to this form of institutionalized power. Both the meanings of resistance and dominance were eventually redefined. The term was redefined mainly through the work of two famous scholars, Foucault (1978) and Scott (1985). Foucault’s and Scott’s concepts of power were more everyday and pervasive forms of power, but Foucault created a new vocabulary of power language such as ‘governmentality’, ‘biopolitics’, and ‘subjectification’ (Ortner, 2016, p. 50). Gene Sharp defines power as a zero-sum game. On the other hand, Foucault believes that power can grow without diminishing elsewhere. The Anglo-Saxon philosophy of the subject, where people with free will attempt to rule others against their will, is what defines Sharp’s definition of power. Foucault, who comes from a continental European background, is more interested in how various forms of power shape our consciousness and behaviour. Power not only imposes restrictions through the use of laws that can be overturned through significant disobedience, but it also creates society and is partially reflected in people’s thoughts, language, and actions. According to Foucault, power is unstable, dynamic, and perpetually recreated (Vinthagen, 2006, p. 10). The individual does not exercise power. Rather, power expresses itself through the individual (Foucault, 1974, pp. 36–37).

Stellan Vinthagen defines resistance as ‘breaking up the power relations where humans are made into ‘tools’ for external interests or servants in oppressive hierarchies’ (Vinthagen, 2006, p. 6). James Scott, an American political scientist and anthropologist, explains that typical tactics used by groups that are not particularly powerful, such as dragging one’s feet, dissimulation, false compliance, stealing, pretending ignorance, defamation, arson, sabotage, and so forth. These Brechtian types of class conflict share some characteristics. They frequently reflect a type of individual self-help, entail little to no coordination or planning, and typically avoid any overt symbolic confrontation with authority or with elite standards. Understanding these everyday forms of resistance helps us better comprehend what a large portion of the peasantry does ‘between revolts’ to protect its interests (Scott, 1985, p. 29).

When a poor person steals from a rich person, is this resistance or simply a survival strategy? Some scholars, such as Fegan (1987), focus on the part about intentions. He elaborates, ‘If a relatively conscious intention to resist is not present, the act is not one of resistance’. Sherry Ortner believes that the concept of resistance exists, although as ambiguous as it seems. She further explains that, due largely to these internal political complexities, small-scale and large-scale acts of resistance are frequently conflicted, internally inconsistent, and affectively ambivalent (Ortner, 1995, p. 176). Resistance was and still is very much intertwined with political dimensions. She explains, ‘the structural Marxist project took shape at roughly the same time as did feminist anthropology. The two together made it difficult for many anthropologists, myself included, to look at even the simplest society ever again without seeing a politics every bit as complex, and sometimes every bit as oppressive, as those of capitalism and colonialism’. Resistance is related to religion as well. Religion is always a great source of cultural values and beliefs and frequently relates strongly to resistance movements (Ortner, 1995, pp. 179–180).

An example of this is Saba Mahmood’s book, Politics of Piety, which argues that Muslim women in Egyptian mosques somehow resist organized Islamist activities and find a moral movement based on Islamic principles. James Scott argued that scholars who focus on hegemony in this relatively deep, culturally internalized sense are likely to miss those ‘hidden transcripts’ of resistance and those covert acts and instances of resistance that do occur (Scott, 1985, 1990). Ortner adds to what Scott has claimed and explains that, in actuality, there are a variety of cultural dynamics at play in every situation of power. People frequently accept the representations that support their own domination, to some extent and for various good and bad reasons. They also maintain alternative, ‘authentic’ traditions of belief and value to see past those representations. The Making of the English Working Class by E. P. Thompson and Roll is an excellent book because it is culturally rich and offers deep insight into resistance’s existence and its manifestations, absences, and moments (Ortner, 1995, p. 183). Ortner also exerts that there are different layers of resistance. The resistance of second-generation Muslims to first-generation Muslims is somewhat analogous to this idea. In Canada, the Muslim community is a minority, and second-generation Muslims are a minority within that group. Interestingly, first-generation Muslims resisted and still resist the dominant culture in Canada to uphold their religion and cultural heritage. Second-generation Muslims were raised in a setting where they witnessed their parents’ struggles but still rejected them on many different levels. This could be referred to as what Dimitrios Theodossopoulos calls ‘resistance to resistance’ (Ortner, 2016, p. 61).

Resistance is a significant aspect of subcultures, whether from the era of CCCS subcultures or contemporary subcultures. Even in the most minute nuances of clubbing, the concept of creating a space for one’s own and clubbing represents a form of resistance. According to Maffesoli, this resistance is on a micro-level, on the level of everyday life, where the unspoken is what binds the group together, where the desire to be with others is expressed, and where differences are addressed (Maffesoli, 1995, p. 149). Susan Ruddick also argues that ‘space is a container in which subculture ‘occurs’ as a consequence of acts of resistance’. The form of resistance shifts from one form to another, as does resistance’s target, but resistance persists in the end (Ruddick, 1997, p. 345).

Ali, one of the Ottawa Men’s Club executives, told me, ‘The biggest obstacle we face is the Muslim community’s elders. I mean that some adults opposed the youth club from the beginning’. Typically, subcultures are resistant to the ‘dominant’ culture and/or parents’ culture and/or other subcultures (Haenfler, 2014, p. 6). Becker (1963) argues that youth form numerous subcultures in response to the cultural contradictions they observe in their parents. Some adolescents rebel against an alien cultural and religious tradition that has been ‘imposed’ on them. Some rebel against the culture and/or religion of their parents. Dick Hebdige argues that middle-class youth look for alternative collective social arrangements to their families (Hebdige, 2006, p. 78). On the other hand, Hannerz argues that club attendees need only feel a sense of identification with other club attendees and that a sense of complete unity is unnecessary (Hannerz, 1980, p. 22). Similar to many other subcultures, the two youth clubs face a variety of parental difficulties. The tensions and resistance these youths have towards their parents can be classified into three categories based on the interviews and fieldwork conducted. The first category is these youths’ resistance to their parents’ organizations and centres. A few youths participated in first-generation organizations, but as one stated, ‘I feel much more at ease in the youth club than in those centres’. Some of these youths resist their parents’ culture and religion, such as Samira, a young woman who rejected her parents’ version of religion and culture, and Ali and Mohammad, two young men in the men’s club, who told me that their parents’ religious practice was not strict enough and that the youth club served as an escape for them. This belongs to the second category of resistance. For Samira, the youth club was an escape from her parent’s strict rules, whereas for Ali and Mohammad, the Ottawa men’s club was a place where they could feel comfortable in regards to religion and have friends who, as they explained, ‘were practicing Muslims’ and where they were receiving ‘the proper religious lectures that we had searched for before and couldn’t find’.

A third form of resistance is directed at the clubbing culture in Canada. The interviews made it clear that the two clubs under study offered an alternative to the typical Canadian nightclubs, describing their clubbing practices as ‘halal’. However, this should not be interpreted as a rejection of Canadian culture in general.

The article begins with examining the first category, resistance to first-generation centres, then discusses the second category and concludes with an explanation of resistance to the Canadian clubbing culture.

Resistance Towards Parental Organizations and Centres

Canada is home to numerous mosques and Islamic centres. Muslim communities are diverse around the globe, and London is one of these places with diverse Muslim groups. The Muslim community is split along linguistic and national lines as well as in terms of religious practice (Baumann, 1996, p. 10).

Most of these Muslim centres do not have 18-year-old men and women-specific programmes, although they host various religious and cultural events. They instead offer programmes for children and young adolescents. Tony Jefferson explains that youth clubs are formed because there are insufficient facilities for youth recreation outside of the club, so youth create their own form of recreation and what they require in the clubs (Jefferson, 1989, p. 69). Additionally, Hebdige argues that certain subcultures, such as the Mods, stayed in ‘smoke-filled clubs’ for ‘ultimate leisure’ (Hebdige, 2006, p. 77). For youths participating in the Men’s and Women’s clubs under study, the same argument can be made regarding their parents’ centres and mosques, as they lack youth-specific programming. In a few instances, such programmes exist, but the youth find them uninteresting and tedious. For instance, Hussein from the Ottawa Men’s Club stated, ‘These few programmes are formal and neither relaxing nor enjoyable. Since mosques are holy places, specific rules must be followed’. When I asked what he meant by rules, he responded, ‘You know, you can’t smoke Shisha’.

Ali, one of the executives of the Ottawa Men’s Club, told me, ‘The biggest obstacle we face is the Muslim community’s elders. I mean that some adults opposed the youth club from the beginning’. When asked why, he responded, ‘Well, some of these elders disagree with what we are doing in this club, and some adults agree with the concept of a youth club but are upset that they are not involved because they want to run things themselves. They even want to influence the religious lectures and the guest lecturers we invite’. Further, he stated that:

Our mandate is distinct from theirs. All other centers were ruled by a family or group of families. They lack democratic values. We required a center for young men and women, as the other centers catered to families and children but not to youth. Also, they lacked the cool and entertaining element that most young people seek.

Even though the majority of the Muslim adult community views these youth clubs with suspicion, the youth in these two clubs have continued to attend, participate, and serve as active volunteers. Regarding marginalization, which is an important aspect of subcultures, one of the men’s club’s founders explained:

The primary reason we created this youth club was to provide a welcoming environment for young people. They believe that they can think and speak freely without being judged, that they are being heard, and that no one is judging or criticizing them for the way they look or behave in a particular way.

The concept of resistance towards first-generation centres has been and continues to be a significant obstacle for the women’s club. The Ottawa Women’s Club was founded a few years prior to the Ottawa Men’s Club, so the concept of resistance towards first-generation immigrants was a major focus of the interviews.

Zainab, one of the founders of the Women’s Club, discussed the role of adults in the club:

We refused to go to their centers, even to hold our own programs, because there are rules once you enter a center. They wanted to exterminate us because we objected to the fact that they had exclusive access to such-and-such a center, and we resisted.

As previously stated, one of the key core concepts in subcultures is the concept of resistance. For this youth club, resisting the way their parents want the youth club to be is a major reason for its establishment, along with holding various independent programmes. They desired independence and resisted their parents and other adults in their community to establish their identity.

Resistance to the Canadian Clubbing Culture

It could be argued that Jefferson’s assertions are not entirely applicable to my case study because these youths have access to various leisure activities, such as bars and nightclubs, outside the youth club and in different parts of the city. Still, their preferences for leisure and ‘fun’ vary.

The Quran forbids drinking alcohol and considers it to be haram. The majority of Muslims concur that the Quran forbids alcohol, despite differences in how strictly this prohibition is to be followed (Michalak & Trocki, 2006). As a result, drinking is seen as incompatible with being a devout Muslim. As a result, Muslims generally have negative opinions of alcohol consumption (Mirdal, 2006). For many Muslims, abstinence is so closely associated with Islam that it can cause uncertainty about one’s Muslim identity and sense of community, for both the individual and those around them (Valentine et al., 2010). Marie Bærndt has studied young Muslim women in Denmark and their struggles with alcohol. She explains that ‘The relationship between drinking and being Danish adds a certain expectation to young people’s conduct, especially young people with connections and relations to other cultures, religions, or countries, as most ethnic minority youth have. Muslim minority youth can thus be caught in-between two different sets of expectations, norms, and values’ (Bærndt, 2020, p. 12).

One Ottawa men’s club member stated, ‘We created the club so that we could have a halal way of clubbing!’ Youth at these clubs enjoyed playing pool and Ping-Pong, watching football and boxing matches, and smoking Shisha, among other enjoyable activities. When asked what the term ‘halal’ meant to them, one of the group members elaborated, ‘A place free from drugs and alcohol, which are prohibited in Islam, and also free from flirting with the opposite sex, which is common in nightclubs in Canada’.

Resisting First-Generation Religion and Culture

Dina Birman and Meredith Poff at the University of Illinois explain that in immigrant families, the cultural divide between the first and second generations is a prevalent issue that many people are unable to resolve. Many members of the second generation believe that their parents do not understand them and that they have no connection to their own culture. They further elaborate that children get immersed in the new culture pretty quickly, especially if they go to school, but parents might never feel sufficiently at ease in the new language and culture to socially integrate into their new nation, and consequently, children and parents of immigrants are living in different cultural worlds (Birman and Poff, 2011, p. 1).

This article has elaborated on the second category, youths who resist their parents’ culture/religion, by examining the cases of Samira, Ali, and Mohammad. Samira was involved with the women’s club.

Samira did not identify as a Muslim but insisted she was an Iranian-Canadian.

She stated, ‘I was raised as a Muslim, but I am not a Muslim; I tell people this when they ask’.

When asked about her parents, she responded:

My parents have always exerted a great deal of pressure on me, and when we went to Iran for a visit, it only intensified, such as don’t do this, don’t wear that, or don’t enter that room. What was considered normal at school and in society differed significantly from what was considered normal in my family. Regarding my integration, my parents were a bit of an obstacle. In fact, I no longer communicate with my parents and have rented a separate place.

Samira explains that she goes to the Women’s youth club ‘just for its sake of fun and the relaxing environment.’ This resistance may consist of rejecting the religion and culture of their parents, picking and choosing between them, or, as this article explains, forming youth clubs as a form of defiance. Samira had cultural and religious rebellions against her parents’ culture and religion. She stated, ‘I believe my parents were stricter than my friend’s parents’, which will eventually lead to a break from everything. Additionally, it should be noted that Samira did not identify as Canadian. She said, ‘I don’t feel fully Canadian because I noticed a distinction between myself and my Canadian friends’. The parents of Samira and their pressure on her should not be generalized among the members of these two clubs, particularly the female members.

For instance, Azadeh, one of the active club members in Ottawa, told me:

My parents do not place any restrictions on me, so I am free to do whatever I please! Actually, I did whatever I pleased, and I wish my parents had been stricter culturally and religiously so I wouldn’t have experimented with so many things as a teenager.

In contrast to Samira, who disagreed with her parents on issues such as praying, wearing a headscarf, and having sex before marriage, as well as some issues related to her parent’s culture and tradition, Ali and Mohammad, two young men from the Ottawa men’s club, said the opposite. Ali and Mohammad explained that they have tensions and arguments with their parents because they believe that their parents are not as religious and observant as they should be. Ali elaborated, ‘This is why having so many reverts in the club is so refreshing because we feel like we have the option to be religious and cool in this club, even though we were not raised religiously’.

Ali and Mohammed’s discussion centred on this quotation, which one of them relayed to me:

The majority of the club’s founders and executives are more religious than their parents, which is why they decided to create a club where members can socialize and attend religious ceremonies and lectures. This club is intriguing because it combines both recreational and religious activities.

Beyer (2013) argues that for some second-generation Muslims, a strong connection to Islam represents a form of youthful rebellion (Beyer & Ramji, 2014, p. 215). Also confirmed by my research is a trend towards a stronger identification with Islam. This trend is understood from the participants’ interviews, both young men and women in this study, and how some indicated that they are more observant than their parents, and this club somehow had an impact on them to become more ‘religious’. This rebellion results in the formation of youth clubs, which are places where young people can interact and speak freely without being judged for their appearance or behaviour. Youth clubs are spaces that youth create for their activities; thus, they are places of what they are now and what they could be instead (Valentine, 1997, p. 325). Youth can express themselves and feel affection or affiliation with other youth in clubs (Valentine, 1997, p. 267). Maffesoli argues that the club space resembles a scene where everyone is simultaneously an actor and a spectator (Maffesoli, 1988, p. 148). Valentine asserts in her book, Geography of Youth: Cool Places, that little attention has been paid to the actual spaces of the clubs, with many studies focusing on how the youth act or dress in the subcultures as opposed to a detailed examination of the places they frequent (Valentine, 1997, p. 278). She emphasizes further that the ‘club industry’ is expanding in many countries, particularly the West. Youth clubbing is the new trend since they previously hung out on the streets (Valentine, 1997, p. 267). The primary reason for creating a space called a club or participating in a club is that middle-class youth have disposable income. Valentine notes in her book that forming or joining a club is evidence that middle-class youth require geography for their activities (Valentine, 1997, p. 4).

Since the two clubs under study operate independently, the youths can spend money. The two clubs’ financial independence from their parent and first-generation centres is the primary reason they can continue to operate independently of external influence. Their financial independence is a form of resistance to their parents, as even renting a small apartment in Ottawa requires a monthly rent payment. Fundraising has always been a difficulty for these clubs. Despite this, the club has not sought financial assistance from first-generation centres. Therefore, these youths spent money on their leisure time and independent ‘halal fun’ to the extent that they went to great lengths and spent money from their own pockets to maintain the club. Men’s and women’s youth clubs reported working hard at McDonald’s and other minimum-wage jobs to pay the club’s rent and become financially independent from their parents’ generation centres. As many young people who participated in the interviews noted, achieving financial independence is difficult but essential to maintaining their group. Mosques and parent organizations have pleaded with them to come and host their events there, but these young men and women have shown utter resistance.

Ali explained:

We put a lot of effort into maintaining this facility. For finances, we use an Excel sheet that is very strict. This month, Sajad and I are in control of the finances, so we are planning how to pay the rent and what to buy for the club. Even the food is provided as a potluck to cut costs. Each member who has been a part of the community for more than six months becomes an elder and contributes to the rent. After I finish my undergraduate classes, I work at Tim Hortons and donate half of my earnings to the club. Mohammad contributes to the rent payment by working at McDonald’s. When we notice that we are having trouble covering the costs of the club, we rent out the club around twice a month for birthday celebrations and other events.

Another club member, Mohammad, who worked at McDonald’s to help pay the rent, stated that most club members have responsibilities, such as cleaning the club after each programme, handling the club’s finances, providing food, and managing the Shisha. He further explained:

Every month the chores go around, and a person who is in charge of finance this month cleans the club next month. Actually, the cleaning task is the best one since you don’t have the big responsibility of finance and at the same time it is fun since you get to stay after 3 am and hang out with your friends more. To be honest, it is tough and a struggle for us to pay the rent and keep this place for ourselves independently while we know that we can go to first-generation centers without paying rent. But it is worth it!

Ortner argues that anthropology of resistance ‘includes both ‘cultural critique’, that is, the critical study of the existing order and studies that emphasize thinking about alternative political and economic futures’ (Ortner, 2016, p. 66). This is also precisely what post-subcultural theorists have argued: unlike the subcultures during the time of CCCS, in which the majority of youth were from the working class and hung out and had ‘fun’ for free on the streets, the majority of youth in subcultures today are from the middle class and rent a place for themselves and the purpose of clubbing and having ‘fun’. It is argued that today’s youth are willing to pay for their entertainment.

Why Participate in the Club?

Diverse motives motivate young people’s participation in subcultures. For Samira, joining the youth club is an escape from her parents’ rules and the exclusion she felt from her peers during her school years, while this was not the case for Hassan and Mona in both the Men’s and Women’s as they simply enjoyed the enjoyable club activities and viewed their club attendance as a leisure activity. Others participated due to their interest in religious programmes.

Ishmael was one of the young men who regularly attended the club after religious lectures. He explained:

To be honest the only reason that I come to the club is the fun part and hanging out with my friends. It is really fun and relaxing at the same time. I could get the religious information in another place and even at my home through the Internet and books.

Becker argues that subcultures emerge among youth in response to the contradictions they see in their parents’ cultures. Some youth rebel against an ‘imposed’ cultural and religious tradition alien to them. An important conclusion that can be drawn from the current study, however, is that youth join clubs and subcultures for very different reasons. As a result, a theoretical school might be suitable for explaining a certain form of behavioUr while being completely unsuited to explaining another. For example, Samira’s case can be explained using the Birmingham School’s concept of resistance. In contrast, Mona and Hassan’s case can be elaborated with Steve Redhead’s concept of club culture, which can be found in his book, Subcultures to Clubcultures (1997). Redhead argues that in the post-subcultural era, youth don’t join subcultures to resist their parents’ cultures or political authorities but just for fun and enjoying the clubbing culture. This was true for some of the members of the clubs under study in this article. For example, John, a convert to Islam who went to the Ottawa Men’s Club, told me, ‘I think the club is very useful because I could have gone downtown Ottawa clubbing, but I chose to go to this club that is totally halal and fun at the same time.’

It should be mentioned that many of the members of the youth clubs in this research reiterated the above view. One of the members of the Ottawa Men’s Club, for example, told me that nightclubs were ‘inappropriate places for Muslim youth’ since the Muslim clubs had now provided a place to hang out. Hassan, one of the executives of the Ottawa Men’s Club, explained:

The reason that we allow Shisha was that a lot of guys here went to shisha lounges and so we decided to have our own lounge but nothing haram happens here and the atmosphere and environment there wasn’t appropriate. I mean there are music, women and alcohol. So, we decided to create an alternative.

Therefore, the clubs provide an alternative to some elements of Canadian clubbing culture that are not allowed in Islam, such as sex before marriage, alcohol, and drugs. So, as these youths mentioned, the activities in these clubs created an alternative to the dominant culture. Ali, one of the founders of the Ottawa club mentioned earlier, argued: ‘A lot of these young men used to go on the streets or nightclubs, and they went to places that are not appropriate places and were wrong places to be around.’ Therefore, for Muslim youth, these clubs provide an alternative that is not as rigid as their parents’ organization regarding religious rituals and cultural traditions; rather, they offer a nightclub-like atmosphere. Young men and women joined these clubs primarily for their religious programming and lectures. This reason was cited more frequently by Ottawa men’s club members with a committed second-generation Imam.

Mohammad, a Sunni Muslim who attended the Ottawa men’s club despite the club’s posters indicating that it is a Shia club, as well as the majority of its participants, told me:

There is something that cannot be found in a mosque setting. I mean that some of the men have no interest in religion. The positive aspect is that, as opposed to clubbing, boys go there for entertainment. Even youth who are only there for the entertainment receive some religious instruction. Thus, it is both entertaining and spiritual.

Many youth who attend the clubs of this research project explained that they do not attend mosques because, unlike in most mosques, they can combine religion and fun at these clubs. In both CCCS and post-subcultural theories, the concept of resistance to the parents’ culture exists. Regarding youth subcultures, however, these two schools disagree on the issue of resistance through styles. The following section elaborates on whether or not styles are used as a form of resistance.

Resistance and Style

Youth subcultures have shifted towards club cultures, signifying that socially diverse ‘youth subcultures’ have gathered primarily for leisure, pleasure, and consumption and now have a ‘trance-like’ togetherness. Iain Chambers argues that contemporary subcultures are ‘private’ bodies, public encounters’ with less collectivity than post-WWII youth subcultures (Chambers, 2014, p. 10). During the time of the Birmingham School and after World War II, styles were used for indirect resistance. However, as post-subcultural theorists explain, styles are no longer used for resistance; instead, clubbing, partying, and having fun are used as a form of resistance in certain subcultures, such as the Acid House movements and Raves. When Dick Hebdige published his first book on style, Subculture: The Meaning of Style, in 1979, he argued in depth that subcultures use style indirectly for the purpose of resistance. But Hebdige acknowledges in the 1975 book Resistance Through Rituals, edited by Tony Jefferson and Stuart Hall, that consumerism culture has a significant impact on the lives of today’s youth, stating, ‘Instead of being spontaneously created from within, styles are becoming manufactured from above’ (Hebdige, 2006, p. 78). These days, youth fashion is dictated by large manufacturers of clothing and accessories.

In contrast, punk created their style during the CCCS era by adding accessories such as pinheads, thereby giving meaningless objects significance. Today’s youth purchase clothing from various brands, some expensive. Their middle-class status enables them to spend money on their style. Youth in most subcultures wear the same clothing as other youth in the general population. In the past, subcultures indirectly resisted the dominant culture through their styles, such as punks, and this is why the Birmingham School placed greater emphasis on styles and their meanings, such as Dick Hebdige’s book on style. Today’s youths continue to resist the dominant culture, as post-subcultural theorists such as Steve Redhead have stated, but not through styles, which are not distinguishable from other youths, but through extreme and lengthy parties, such as Acid Houses and Rave subcultures. Participants, executives, and founders of the two youth clubs under study opposed and disagreed with many religious and nonreligious leaders and rulers in Muslim-majority countries. As a result, when they read verses from the Quran, they emphasized those that condemned corrupt leaders and religious figures.

To summarize this article’s critical analysis, it should be highlighted that the Muslim youth subculture that is emerging in various Canadian cities is based on post-subcultural theories rather than Birmingham School theory. This is evident from the case study. These young Muslims have founded ‘halal’ youth clubs that are separate from both their parents’ and their parents’ generation, and these clubs are not supported by their parents at all. They have established a judgement-free, safe haven for themselves to spend their free time in. Because they enjoy themselves so much and spend their free time at the clubs, they oppose the organizations and cultures of their parents as well as Canadian nightclubs. Youths at Birmingham Schools are resisting because they do not accept the ‘normal styles’ of the prevailing culture and instead are based on their own styles. The styles of these young men and women were ‘nothing extraordinary’, as Steve Redehad has mentioned but their resistance was ingrained in their leisure time and creation of a separate youth club. Several levels of resistance were attained through interviewing and club participation as well.

Goffman and the Resistance of a Minority Within a Minority

Erving Goffman, a well-known sociologist, theorized that people who do not fit into the dominant culture and are perceived to be different from normal society tend to grow closer to fellow community members and peers in similar situations. Thus, the concept of ‘we’ as a minority is bolstered. According to Goffman, these minority communities value their members for who they truly are and permit their members to take pride in who they are (Goffman, 1963, pp. 3–18). These second-generation youths who have established youth clubs are a minority within Canada’s minority Muslim community. In addition, these youths are a minority among other Canadian youth, the dominant youth culture, because they do not attend nightclubs, drink alcohol, or engage in sexual activity prior to marriage. In these youth clubs, these adolescents feel at ease, closer, and more open with their peers. All respondents indicated that they would approach another second-generation youth first if they required assistance with a life challenge or if they had a religious question. This is similar to Valentine’s claim that nightclubs are ‘social spaces’ and ‘relief spaces’ from the outside world and people’s daily lives (Valentine, 1997, p. 266). According to Richard Sennett, researchers have found that nightclubs are relaxing environments because they are not on the street and under the eyes, surveillance, and expectations of others (Sennett, 1990, p. 10).

All club members, including those from the Ottawa men’s club who said they primarily attend for the lecture, told me that their clubs are places to ‘relax and feel at ease without being judged’. Although the research mentioned above by Goffman on minorities is valid in terms of the article’s case study, his remark about club members needs improvement. According to him, ‘losing’ or ‘losing yourself’ is the essence of club experiences, and members forget and abandon parts of their identities. He explains that drug use, alcohol consumption, and dancing in the dark encompass this experience. Except for the Shisha, which was exclusive to the men’s club, none of these instruments were used in this study. In addition, participation in these clubs strengthened the participants’ identities as second-generation immigrants. Although, as Goffman has argued, a portion of forgetting their identity may be attributable to their work and occupations (Goffman, 1963, p. 69). Several participants in this study noted that one of the reasons for establishing and attending the club was to ‘forget for a few hours the tensions that exist outside the club, such as university responsibilities and jobs, and instead feel relaxed’.

As Valentine has argued, for some clubgoers, socializing and small talk are the primary reasons they frequent nightclubs rather than the music, dance, and alcohol, which closely resembled what the youths explained in the fieldwork (Valentine, 1997, p. 277).

Conclusion

The Canadian Muslim diaspora is a complex topic that requires additional study. As it was explained in this article, much of the research conducted in North America focuses on first-generation immigrants. In contrast, second-generation immigrants receive less attention. This article examines the concept of resistance in two Muslim youth clubs in Ottawa that are formed and run without adult supervision by second-generation Muslim youth. In addition to participant observation, semi-structured interviews with 26 participants are used to gain a deeper understanding of the participants’ motivations, attitudes, and perceptions. Before joining these clubs, it was assumed that there was only resistance towards first-generation centres. However, there are various levels of resistance present. Having a sense of opposition towards sheikhs, political leaders, and rulers was also a popular form of resistance among the participants, despite the fact that opposing parents’ organizations and centres was the form of resistance shared by both clubs and the one they emphasized as being the most significant.

This article argues that a Muslim youth subculture is emerging among second-generation Canadians through the establishment of independent youth clubs. This new Muslim youth subculture is consistent with aspects of the Birmingham School and post-subcultural theories in other respects. These youth clubs had multiple layers and levels of resistance, but their resistance type was not entwined with their aesthetic. The concept of clubbing conforms to post-subcultural theories.

Youth spending money for their leisure and entertainment is a concept that is present in post-subcultural theories. Spending money on ‘fun’ and keeping it is a form of resistance based on post-subcultural theorists, while Birmingham Schools’ concept of resistance is based on extraordinary styles. The resistance that trhese young people have is based on two layers. The first layer is towards their parents by establishing and running the youth club based on post-subcultural theories. The second layer of their resistance via establishing and running the youth club is towards the Canadian nightclub culture. These young Muslims resist going to nightclubs, with all their temptations, while at the same time creating an alternative ‘Halal way of clubbing.’

The clubs had created a unique form of ‘fun’ for themselves, which, despite being ‘halal’, was not approved by their parents and thus represented a form of resistance against them. In addition, these second-generation immigrant youths’ recreation and leisure were infused with religion. Religion played a role in the clubs’ programming. As it was mentioned in the article, contrary to the Birmingham School, participation in a subculture is a matter of choice for these youth, as post-subcultural theories have argued. Post-subcultural theorists believe that subcultures are consumerist, and this is true about the youth club members. However, this consumerism does not eliminate their resistance capacity. For second-generation youth, clubbing represents a form of resistance against first-generation centres and the Canadian nightclub culture.

In Canada, independent or semi-independent Muslim youth clubs are being founded and continue to be founded, with most participants and leaders being second-generation. At the end of this research, I was introduced to two other youth clubs in Toronto and one Montreal club. Therefore, the Muslim Youth Cave Subculture exists and needs further and greater research.

The emergence of a divide between first-generation Muslim immigrants and their children of the second generation is the impetus for the emergence of this subculture. In addition, the inability of first-generation centres in various Canadian cities to meet the needs of these young people has necessitated the formation of the aforementioned clubs, which are the driving forces behind the rise of the subculture. Contrary to what Hebdige claims, the resistance of the two clubs differed. He asserts that subcultures possess a resistance to the dominant culture. On the one hand, the youths in my study resisted the Saturday night club culture in Canada; however, they resisted their parents’ culture more strongly and vehemently. Therefore, most of their resistance in Canada was directed at a minority culture and not the dominant majority culture.

In Canada, the resistance of second-generation Muslim youth to their parents’ organization and cultural practices represents the resistance of a minority within a minority. Contrary to Hebdige’s assertion that subcultures make ‘noise’, these young people are not attempting to make noise but rather a sound that is largely congruent with the dominant culture. In fact, the vast majority of these youth identify as Canadians rather than as members of their parent’s culture. However, it should be noted that the creation of these youth clubs has unintentionally sparked opposition from first-generation centres and organizations in the Muslim communities of their respective cities. Although there is a lot of tension between the two generations of Muslims, and one of the reasons for this is the creation of these youth clubs, the idea of morality and ethical behaviour within each club and among these second-generation Muslim youth should be thoroughly researched.

This ethnographic research provides insight into the lifestyle of Muslim youths in Canada. Because second-generation immigrant issues are currently being debated in Canada, especially with the rise of the second-generation Muslim population, it is crucial to accurately understand their rise in population. Further research is required to examine other aspects of their lives, as this article provided a better understanding of the challenges some second-generation Muslim youth face in one area and how they cope with them.