Preface and acknowledgements

This book is the first comprehensive study of Muslim migrant integration in rural Britain across the post1960s period. It stems from an interest in both migration policies and the everyday lives of ethnic minority communities at the local level, as well as a sense that there is a need to shift the focus on British Muslims away from urban conurbations of settlement towards more nonmetropolitan and peripheral settings. It uses Wiltshire as a case study, a county in the southwest of England whose local authority and Muslim migrant populations have long recognised the inherent rurality of their local surroundings. The book draws upon both a range of previously unexplored archival material and oral histories carried out with members of the Muslim communities, and reveals what is a clear, and often complex, relationship between rurality and integration. In doing so, it challenges the longheld presumption that local authorities in more rural areas have been inactive, and even disinterested, in devising and implementing migration, integration and diversity policies, and sheds light on small and dispersed Muslim communities that have traditionally been written out of Britain’s immigration history. The study of Muslim integration in Britain in historical perspective across the post1960s period is not without its challenges and difficulties. Indeed, much of the local authority documentation drawn upon throughout this book is framed within discussions on ethnicity and race, not religion, due to religious affiliation not being considered a significant marker of identity until more recently, and since the 1990s especially. Furthermore, whilst the inherent diversity of Wiltshire’s Muslim communities’ experiences and identities is central to the book’s arguments, its focus on Muslims undoubtedly leads to the prioritisation of religion over what are other equally important components of identity, such as class, ethnicity and gender. Some challenges emerged as a result of studying Muslim populations in a more rural setting at the county level. Wiltshire’s local authority did not have one specific committee or unit that monopolised issues of migration, integration and local Muslim populations’ needs and demands. To the contrary, debates, policies and strategies permeated numerous levels of local government and a wide