Sensational reporting by the media has led to attitudes that racialise Muslims and frame them as potential threats to national security, placing them outside the circle of trustworthy citizenship. Muslims in the West are increasingly confronted with the pressure of conforming to dominant core values and accepting 'mere tolerance' from society, or else risk exclusion and even hostility when exercising their rights to maintain diverse cultural norms and religious practices.

Fethi Mansouri is director of the Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation and holds a chair in Migration and Intercultural Relations, School of International and Political Studies, Deakin University. He is the author and editor of many books. In 2004, his book Lives in Limbo: Voices of Refugees under Temporary Protection was short-listed for the Human Rights Medals and Awards.

Vince Marotta is a senior lecturer in sociology at Deakin University, the managing editor of the Journal of Intercultural Studies and co-convener of the Migration, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism thematic group within the Australian Sociological Association. In 2011 he edited a special issue of the Journal of Intercultural Studies on virtual ethnicities and co-edited the book Intercultural Relations in a Global World.