Decolonial World-Making in Luton: How South Asian Muslim Women Artists in Luton Create and Inhabit Multiple Worlds

许多关于艺术中的穆斯林妇女的学术主要涉及表现问题，即通过探索负面的刻板印象(Morey和Yaqin，2011年)或在世俗的、以白人为主的地理位置上拥有相互冲突的身份(Ralph和Gibson，2021年)。虽然作品非常重要，但框架中经常缺少的是穆斯林女性的声音和经历，她们正在创作超出表现和被表现需要的艺术作品，她们不认为跨性别、种族、宗教和民族的多重身份是冲突的。在对表现的局限性和对有争议的身份的叙述的挑战中，我的研究将探索总部位于卢顿的南亚侨民艺术家的作品，她们呈现而不是代表多种经历，并在这样做的过程中颠覆了关于表现的话语。我将探讨这些艺术家的创作实践如何打乱了将英国穆斯林女性的经历必不可少的努力。通过关注地点，我的研究还将调查他们的做法对于将卢顿重塑为一个小镇至关重要，在那里，与不同生活在一起的非殖民主义可能性可以得到测试和生活。支持这项研究的是沃尔特·米格诺洛(Walter Mignolo)(2018)的多元主义非殖民主义理论，该理论提出了一个多世界可能的世界，正如墨西哥本土的萨帕蒂斯塔运动所阐述的那样。这种国际主义的视角将与露丝·威尔逊·吉尔摩对地点创造和感觉基础设施的阐述进行对话，这些基础设施构成了物质意识形态和“情感允许或约束的行动”(2022：490)。这些理论框架的结合将有助于探索穆斯林女性艺术家在卢顿创造和生活在非殖民主义世界的方式，在卢顿，差异是一个事实，而不是一个需要解决的问题。我的研究将从英国南亚穆斯林女性的角度出发，并由她们的视角领导，并将利用我过去15年在创意行业的现有联系。这项研究将聚焦于生活在卢顿的穆斯林女性。卢顿是一个没有单一种族的多元城镇(种族动态中心，2013年)，穆斯林占总人口的24.6%(2011年人口普查)，也是英国政府提升议程的目标地区之一(住房和社区升级部，2022年)。卢顿还因其以男性为主的右翼人物，如汤米·罗宾逊和安德鲁·泰特(Das 2022)，以及极端主义伊斯兰意识形态的支持者(史密斯和加德姆，2017年)的故事而出现在国家媒体上。因此，这项研究将在一个更大的框架内保持对当地的关注，该框架涉及性别、宗教和种族主义身份，以及英国与植根于后殖民国家巴基斯坦、孟加拉国和印度的多代侨民的关系。

Much of the scholarship on Muslim women in the arts is concerned primarily with issues of representation, namely through an exploration of negative stereotypes (Morey and Yaqin 2011) or as possessing conflicting identities in secular, majority white geographies (Ralph and Gibson 2021). While highly important work, what is often missing from the frame are the voices and experiences of Muslim women who are producing artistic work that goes beyond the need to represent and be represented, and who do not consider multiple identities across gender, race, religion and nationality as being in conflict.In a challenge to the limitations of representation and the narrative of contested identities, my research will explore the work of Luton-based South Asian diaspora artists who present rather than represent a multitude of experiences, and in so doing subvert the discourse on representation. I will explore how these artists' creative practices disrupt attempts to essentialise the experiences of British Muslim women. By focusing on place, my research will also investigate how their practices are essential to remaking Luton as a town where decolonial possibilities for living with difference can be tested and lived.Underpinning the research is Walter Mignolo's (2018) decolonial theory of the pluriverse that proposes a world in which many worlds are possible, as articulated by the indigenous Mexican Zapatista movement. This internationalist lens will be positioned in dialogue with Ruth Wilson Gilmore's articulation of place-making and the infrastructure of feeling that makes material ideologies and "actions that feelings enable or constrain" (2022: 490). The combination of these theoretical frameworks will facilitate an exploration of the ways in which Muslim women artists create and inhabit decolonial worlds within Luton in which difference exists as a fact rather than a problem to be solved.My research will be led from and by the perspectives of British South AsianMuslim women and will draw on my existing connections in the creative industries over the last 15 years. The research will focus on Muslim women living in Luton, a plural town with no single ethnicity in the majority (Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity 2013), where Muslims make up 24.6% of the total population (2011 Census), and one of the areas targeted by the UK government's Levelling Up agenda (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities 2022).Luton has also featured in national media for its male dominated stories of right-wing figures such as Tommy Robinson and Andrew Tate (Das 2022), and proponents of extremist Islamic ideologies (Smith and Gardham 2017). This research will therefore maintain a local focus within a larger framework of decoloniality and geopolitics informed by gender, religious and racialised identities, and the UK's relationship with a multi-generational diaspora population that has its roots in the postcolonial states of Pakistan, Bangladesh and India.