The growing literature on Islamophobia is dominated by empirical studies, the analysis of media representations and socio-psychological approaches, while many of these studies have been valuable in illustrating the range of expressions of Islamophobia; they have been less successful in understanding the phenomena, and mapping its relationship with other forms of discriminatory practices such as racism and anti-Semitism. This article presents a conceptual examination of the category of Islamophobia and the work it is called upon to do in contemporary debates, as prelude to a discussion about what a theorization of this concept could contribute to the field of social analysis and policy.
In this article we are not concerned with the management of extremists, but with the regulation of wider populations stereotyped as extreme based on the conflation of difference with politicality. Attempts to regulate racialized populations by excising the political surplus seen as constituting excessive Muslim difference are viewed in the context of a Muslim identity politics that places the ontology of the social into crisis by challenging the terms on which modernity’s racial projects subjectify actors. As seemingly non-racial, Muslims are represented as haunting, incorporeal and incomplete subjects. Islamophobia emerges as a corrective, racializing apparently incompletely racial subjects. Its success is underwritten by the attempts to deny the racist nature of Islamophobia. The shift from managing lawbreakers to stereotyping entire populations as extremists is central to this.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.