Conspicuous Abstention: Distinction through Restraint Among Muslim Americans

Sociological literature tends to measure religiosity through belief (e.g. in God, scripture, etc.), practices (e.g. prayer), attendance in religious services, or identification (i.e. declared membership in a denomination). Abstention, as a form of religious practice and/or a signifier of religious identity, remains under theorized. Yet, there’s reason to believe it may be salient. We draw on life history interviews conducted with eighty second- and 1.5-generation American Muslims to explore the role of abstention in religiosity. We use name-based sampling drawn from a voter-registry to recruit Muslims who are varied in their levels of practice and involvement in Islamic spaces and institutions.We deploy a Bourdieusian model of distinction, and find that abstention does important boundary work for Muslim Americans. Among non-Muslims, abstention from pork, drugs, and alcohol serves as a signifier of identity. Among Muslims, abstention from music, movies, and mix-gendered interaction establishes tiers of religiosity, marking the 'more practicing' from the 'less practicing.' In either case, distinction works by creating interactional tension. Our work has three payoffs. We add to the broader understanding of religiosity, suggesting that abstention can be an important metric for understanding both religious practice and identity. We also expand on theories of distinction by examining the interactional deployment of abstention as a boundary marker. Lastly, we add to empirical knowledge on Muslim Americans across levels of religiosity and embeddedness in Muslim space.