Stories We Live and Grow By: (Re)Telling Our Experiences as

(Re)Telling Our Experiences as Muslim Mothers and Daughters Interweaving my experiences as a Canadian Muslim woman, mother, (grand)daughter, educator, and scholar throughout this work, I write about living and narratively inquiring (Clandinin and Connelly, Narrative Inquiry) alongside three Muslim mothers and daughters during our daughters’ transition into adolescence. I was interested in mother-and-daughter experiences during this time of life transition because my eldest daughter, Malak, was in the midst of transitioning into adolescence as I embarked upon my doctoral research. I had many wonders about Malak’s experiences, my experiences as a mother, and the experiences of other Muslim daughters and mothers in the midst of similar life transitions. I wondered about how dominant narratives from within and across Muslim and other communities in Canada shape our lives and experiences. For, while we are often storied as victims of various oppressions in media, literature, and elsewhere, little is known about our diverse experiences—particularly the experiences of Muslim mothers and daughters composing ourselves and lives alongside one another in familial places. Alongside three mothers (Safaa, Ayesha, and Layla) and their daughters (Rayyan, Zahra, and Maya), I make visible many of the personal, familial, intergenerational, institutional, linguistic, cultural, temporal, faith-based/religious, and social narratives we live by, with, and in. Together, in over two years of being in relation, we inquired into many of the stories that have been planted in us, the stories we are planting in ourselves and others, and the stories we are relationally shaping and reshaping as Muslim mothers and daughters. Reverberating across the stories we shared and inquired into are our experiences of living in the midst of, and in relation to, multiple arrogant perceptions and single stories from within and across Muslim and other communities in Canada. However, sharing, living, and inquiring into these stories alongside one another foregrounded the many ways we live stories of relational resistance to these unhealthy narratives. Within our chosen communities, we speak back to these narratives and illuminate the many ways we are continually (re)composing ourselves and our lives with imagination and improvisation (Bateson, Composing a life) … and always in relation. Muna Saleh recently completed her doctoral program in the Department of Elementary Education at the University of Alberta. Her two-year doctoral research, a narrative inquiry into the experiences of Canadian Muslim girls and their mothers, drew upon Muna’s experiences as a Canadian Muslim woman, mother, educator, and researcher alongside six other Canadian Muslim females. Before her graduate studies, Muna was an elementary and secondary school teacher and leader. Page Count: 330pp, Size: 234x156mm