27 Aug 2026
Shi'a Identity and Belonging in Britain with Dr Emanuelle Degli Esposti | Thinking Islam Ep.18
What happens when a community feels present in Britain but absent from the public story of British Islam? In this episode of Thinking Islam, we explore what it means to be Shi'a in Britain today with Dr Emanuelle Degli Esposti. Drawing on her ethnographic research into Shi'a Muslim communities in the UK, Dr Degli Esposti examines questions of diaspora, minority identity, sectarianism, and belonging. The conversation begins with her own route into the field — from learning Arabic in Paris and reporting on the Arab Spring to marrying into an Iraqi Shi'a family and discovering a community that was largely absent from the academic and public accounts of British Islam she had encountered. We trace the emergence of a specifically British Shi'a identity among a generation that increasingly meets across Iraqi, Pakistani, Khoja, and Lebanese lines, finding forms of shared belonging their parents did not necessarily possess. The discussion explores how British multiculturalism helped make religion a public marker of identity; how Najaf and Karbala came to carry greater emotional and symbolic weight than Baghdad for some younger Shi'a; and how the Karbala paradigm was reworked into a language of justice that now intersects with movements such as Black Lives Matter and Me Too. Along the way, we consider university campuses as spaces of identity formation, the commercialisation of belonging through hoodies, hashtags, and symbols, and Dr Degli Esposti's provocative idea of "ethical sectarianism": that constructing a positive minority identity can also produce an implied counter-identity. Dr Emanuelle Degli Esposti is an independent researcher who holds a PhD and MSc from SOAS, University of London, and a BA from the University of Oxford. Her research explores Shi'a diaspora, ritual, activism, sectarianism, and belonging, and is developed at length in her forthcoming book Not That Kind of Muslim: Sectarian Belongings and the Making of British Shi'ism.Audio Chapters: 0:00 – Highlights 1:36 – An Outsider's Route into the Field 7:36 – Catholic Parallels & the Limits of Observation 9:13 – "Not That Kind of Muslim" 11:33 – Who Is the Audience? Anxiety & Pride 14:07 – Still Under-Researched: "What's a Shia?" 17:10 – The Good Muslim / Bad Muslim Trap 18:28 – Forging a British Shi'a Identity 23:14 – The Shi'a Subject Explained 28:39 – Iraq Disappearing: Exile & Nostalgia 34:28 – After 2003: "Never Felt More English" 37:35 – Najaf, Karbala & Sacred Geographies 42:18 – Religious Authority & Multiple Shi'a Subjects 44:59 – The Karbala Paradigm & Social Justice 48:08 – Ritual, Performance & Belonging 49:51 – Mapping Shi'a London 52:04 – Multiculturalism & the Ethnicisation of Religion 57:33 – "Shi'a Rights" & Coming Out as Shia 1:01:27 – The University Campus as a Crucible 1:04:25 – "Woke Shi'ism" & the Depth of Religious Feeling 1:06:43 – Victimhood, Backlash & the Shadow Side 1:13:11 – Hoodies, Hashtags & Brand Shi'ism 1:17:19 – What Academia Still Misses 1:19:43 – Reflexivity, Faith & a Moment in Mashhad 1:24:08 – Thinking Islam Question
