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A critical review of a Research article
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Objective
The objective of this research project was to explore how a group of British Muslim Gay Men who are belonging to Pakistan identify their sexual, religious, and ethnic identities while staying in between with the non-gay affirmative people to take care of their religious and sexual preferences and stay away from the identity threat (Jaspal and Cinnirella, 2010).
Kind of article
The article is a case study of the British Muslim Gay Men from Pakistan which is conducted by the British Psychological Society and the paper is a British journal of social psychology. Rusi Jaspal and Marco Cinnirella, Department of psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK conducted this research. Historically the research is based in Pakistan, but it has been geographically conducted in UK (Jaspal and Cinnirella, 2010).
Justification
The justification which the author offered for undertaking the research is to explore the living experiences of the people through the help of the interpretive lens of the identity processes theory. This is done by the author to analyze the feelings and the identity considerations of gay men. The author offered this research to analyze the psychological coherence principle so that they can ensure a sense of coherence between the existing identities and always provides the way through which the individual can prevent the threats to their principles.
Main arguments
The main argument which the author presents is that the impact of the religion on the lesbian, gay and bisexual identities of the people as they observed that the LGB identities are going with the Christian people and the men who belong to Islam are incompatible with LGB (Jaspal and Cinnirella, 2010). This indicates that the preferences of the sexual and social orientation were only based on the religion that the people are following which presents a huge threat to their identities and choices of living life (Jaspal and Ferozali, 2020). The author has chosen British Gay Muslim Men to prove that the sexual orientation and preferences and the choice to live life in their way is not based on religion.
Method
The method which is used for the data collection is a type of semi-structured interview which included a total number of 12 British Gay Muslim Men belonging to Pakistan. The results of their interview and the viewpoints which were collected were converted into 4 themes and the research analysis is carried out as thematic analysis. "I'm Gay because….", "Making sense of gay identity", "Tt's all about temptation", "invoking religious discourses to explain sexual identity" are the four themes that are used for the thematic analysis carried out by the author of the research project (Rehman et al. 2020). These methods were selected by the author to gain the exact knowledge about the topic based on both theoretical and practical shreds of evidence. The data and the evidence for the author came from those 12 British Gay Muslim Men who reside in the UK but belong to the Pakistan background which indicates they follow Islam and this is the reason they have been chosen for conducting this research as the argument present that the people who follow Islam are not compatible of belonging to the LGB community (Jaspal and Cinnirella, 2010).
The main findings of this research project are:
Insights about the experiences of a group of men who belong to the British Gay Muslim Men having Pakistani background in context to a non-gay compatible religion. This research provides the idea that the sexual orientation and identity of a person are not based on the religion which they follow. The psychological processes and the identities and the experiences of the people belonging to this group and religion are established in this research paper.
Another finding of this research paper is the idea about the intersection of religion, ethnicity, and identity as well as it also provides the idea about the threat to identity which religion presents. This research paper will help to analyze the identity principles and the psychological coherence principles which will provide the idea about the motivational force to guide the identity process. Therefore, this research provides insights into the identity process among the British Gay Muslim Men and the revision of the group dynamics to deal with the cultural dynamics of the people belonging to this group (Jaspal, 2020).
The limitations related to this research is mentioned below
None of the person out of the 12 men who were interviewed have disclosed the fact of being gay to their family members which indicate that there can be some changes of sharing inaccurate or fake information by those men (Jaspal and Cinnirella, 2010).
Individuals were provided with the freedom to choose which question they want to answer and which question they do not want to and this is the reason there will be some information present that is not related to everyone and will not present accuracy. The paper has been presented to the readers and viewers with the help of pseudonyms which is also a point of concern for the actual identity of the research.
Conclusion
The article concludes that the British Gay Muslim Men despite their religious affirmations they are needed to follow their identities and preferences. The article also provides insights about the physical and mental choices of a person which indicates their life-leading approaches but the restrictions which are imposed from the religion are not allowing them to lead their lives in a free manner as well as it is presenting a threat to their identities. The article also concludes that the intersection of the religious, ethnic, and sexual identities of the Muslim men presents a threat to their identities as they do not get to choose their preferences of leading life.
Overall strengths and weaknesses
This article presents a very strong view of the Muslim men who are not able to choose their way of processing life as Islam is not compatible with LGB. On the other hand, it is also true that there is no proof that the chosen men provide the exact detail regarding the research topic. The men were provided the chance to opt-out from any question therefore it indicates that the questions are not answered by everyone and can have less accuracy. The research paper adds that the threat to identity is real especially because of the religious affirmativeness in the field of psychosocial research.
References
- Jaspal, R. and Cinnirella, M., 2010. Coping with potentially incompatible identities: Accounts of religious, ethnic, and sexual identities from British Pakistani men who identify as Muslim and gay. British Journal of Social Psychology, 49(4), pp.849-870.
- Jaspal, R. and Ferozali, R., 2020. Social representations of Britishness among British South Asian gay men. South Asian Diaspora, pp.1-18.
- Jaspal, R., 2020. Honour beliefs and identity among British South Asian gay men. Men, masculinities and honour-based abuse, pp.114-127.
- Jaspal, R., 2020. Parental reactions to British South Asian young men who identify as gay. Journal of GLBT Family Studies, 16(4), pp.402-417.
- Rehman, Z., Jaspal, R. and Fish, J., 2020. Service Provider Perspectives of Minority Stress among Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual People in the UK. Journal of Homosexuality, pp.1-23.
