Geographies of Muslim Women and the UK Cultural and Creative Economy

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It is widely held that the cultural and creative economy is one of the fasted growing sectors of the overall UK economy. Comprising disparate sub-sectors from arts, media, design and software, numerous reports and studies have attended to the importance of the UK in defining and measuring the cultural and creative economy. For instance, the DCMS Culture White Paper (March 2016, 15) identified that the sector contributes to multiple values: Intrinsic (enriching value of culture in and of itself); Social (educational and well-being); and Economic (contribution to growth and job creation). Whileinternational studies have been undertaken on inequalities in creative labour, foregrounding unevenness around access and networking, division of labour, and status and promotion, there has been a lack of analysis on issues surrounding the roles and experiences of minority faith groups, along with their engagement and leadership within distinctive sub-sectors. Further, despite significant empirical analysis of gender and class in creative labour, these have not considered in detail the interplay and relevance of faith and religion in the sector.Accordingly, the Fellowship will be used to develop a research project on the role of minority faith actors in creative labour. It will focus specifically on Muslim women, whom have been the subjects of numerous recent reports and policy initiatives intended to support belonging and integration. Addressing their roles in the fast-growing Muslim marketplace of digital media and fashion, along with artistic roles in the transitioning remits of art galleries, this project advances these discourses and debates by focusing for the first time on forms of cultural engagement. The sub-sectors profiled offer a range that is representative of the scope and complexity of the sector, comprising emerging forms with low barriers to entry (digital media) to more traditional cultural institutions with high barriers to entry (art galleries); and those that intersect everyday to event culture (e.g fashion; art galleries).Ultimately the project will lead to a book (provisionally entitled 'Faith, Creativity, Work: Muslim women and the UK Cultural and Creative Economy) and two journal articles, exhibition and launch event, and a cross-sectoral research and knowledge exchange network. It will provide a framework on Muslim women producers advancing two central themes: first, Muslim women are already contributing to the UK cultural and creative economy in important ways; second, developing faith specific support for women may nevertheless be needed because of distinctive barriers to entry and pressures in working in flexible creative labour, in spaces that are typically secular and dominated by white male leadership.My work during the Fellowship will answer the following questions:- How is the social category 'Muslim women' being mobilised by creative producers within their work and in the wider cultural and creative economy? -What different roles and practices in creative labour are currently being performed by Muslim women in each of the sub-sectors? -What are the particular social and spatial issues surrounding pathways into and advancement for Muslim women in each of the sub-sectors? Does an analysis of social and spatial issues surrounding pathways and advancement present a case for faith specific support? - What kinds of support including policy mechanisms, institutional reforms, and agents are required to pursue diversification of the cultural and creative sector for Muslim women?The Fellowship will be very important for developing my leadership skills. It will consolidate my experience of knowledge exchange and public engagement, with the aim of strengthening the skills necessary to achieve substantial and clear impacts on policy, and will lead to the development of new cross-sectoral network on diversifying cultural and creative labour.