Religious Conversion: An Ethnographic Analysis

This paper examines the impact of religious conversion on the identity, perceptions and everyday life of Australian converts to Islam in Melbourne. Based on ethnographic research, the paper draws upon qualitative data collected in 2002 a time when the supposed inherent conflict between ‘Islam and the West’ became even more prevalent in the political, academia and media milieu. I gathered qualitative data to study the experiences of forty Australian Muslim converts in order to examine the perceived conflict between being Muslim, Australian and ‘Western’. It is significant to examine how these perceived tensions are managed in everyday life. While it is a scholarly significant research question to examine why people convert to Islam, it is equally of importance to examine what happens to Muslim converts post-conversion. What impact does converting to Islam have on one’s identity, perceptions and everyday life? How are such changes managed and ‘negotiated’? An ethnographic analysis and the experiences relayed by the participants in this study indicate that, research participants on the whole reflected significant changes to everyday life and worldviews but less change is experienced with regard to their personal ‘identity’ and personality.