Как младите жени предоговарят, отхвърлят и реконструират "наложената им другост"
Young females negotiating, resisting and reconstructing "othering"

Summary/Abstract: The paper deals with the question how the national and public discourse of cultural otherness in Germany concerns the daily experiences of young female Muslims in Berlin. After considering how ‘othering’ discourses and gazes are part of interpellating or hailing the young females, the paper suggests how the young females resist, deconstruct and accommodate some of these discourses through strategies or situational management techniques. This takes place in an effort to alter or infl uence the current negative stereotypes of Muslims in Germany. Increased social pressure that is gendered is an unintended consequence of the representative role that the young females take on. At the same time, the females have the potential to interrupt, disturb and also prevent the attempt to insert them into particular ‘subject positions’ formed by the ‘othering’ discourses. In this process, the youth make use of techniques of presenting themselves and a management of identity takes place. The efforts of impression management indicated can illustrate the performative aspects of a religious social identity, embedded in social practice. The data for the paper arrives from fi eldwork with young women participating in a Muslim youth organization and from my regular visits in several mosques in Berlin during a period of 18 months.

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