Racism, Governance, and Public Policy

Theorising the ‘Security Influencer’: Speaking security, terror and Muslims on social media during the Manchester bombings

“…These observations echo ongoing debates about security and British Muslims stretching back to the Iranian Revolution and the Satanic Verses scandal (Modood, 2006). However, in post-9/11 times, British Muslims are increasingly situated as existential threats to UK liberal political and social order (Moore et al, 2008; Poole, 2002; Saeed, 2007; Sian et al, 2012). Coverage focuses on recurring concerns of terror, religious and cultural difference and extremism (Moore et al, 2008) with two-thirds during this period situating Muslims as a threat and/or problem (Abbas, 2004; Moore et al, 2008).…”

“…On the 22nd of May 2017, a British man, Salman Abedi, detonated a suicide bomb in the Manchester Arena re-igniting debates about counterterrorism and radicalisation (Hedges, 2017) and presenting multiple discursive implications for existing debates. Prior UK constructions of British Muslims had been dominated by integration and security concerns (Poole, 2002; Saeed, 2007; Sian et al, 2012) for more than a decade in light of 9/11 and the war on terror. However, the media landscape had shifted since previous attacks with the Manchester bombing occurring in the social media era and not requiring individuals wishing to debate to wait for newspaper editorials, nor academic and policy literature that trickled out in the following years.…”

The diversity of professional Canadian Muslim women: Faith, agency, and ‘performing’ identity

“…Post-9/11, Muslims in Canada face more discrimination than other groups (Sheridan, 2006; Statistics Canada, 2011; Leber, 2017). Most scholarship on Muslim identity focuses on barriers and experiences of discrimination faced by Muslims in the workplace (Adida, Laitin, & Valfort, 2010; Pierné, 2013; Van Laar, Belle Derks, & Ellemers, 2013), how Muslims are constructed as ‘Other’ (Bowbly & Lloyd-Evans, 2009), stereotypes that associate Muslims with extremism, and negative perceptions of Muslims as ‘radical, fanatical, [and] fundamentalist’ (Sian, Law, & Sayyid, 2013: 85). There has been less exploration of how Muslims themselves, particularly Muslim women, construct and navigate their identities in contexts such as the workplace, choosing to reveal or conceal various dimensions of their identities.…”

Islamophobia, racialisation and the ‘Muslim problem’ in France

“…While much research has focused on the ways in which the French Republic ‘others’ non-White citizens through everyday exclusions (Beauchemin et al, 2015; Simon, 2012), others have focused more on the role of the media in this process of racialisation and the construction of the ‘Muslim problem’ (Cervulle, 2013; Hall et al, 1978; Petley and Richardson, 2011; Poole and Richardson, 2006; Rabah, 1998; Said, 1997; Tevanian, 2005, 2006); although, as Hajjat and Mohammed (2013: 116) have argued, analyses of media representations, discourses and content (Deltombe, 2005; Macé, 2009; Sian et al, 2013) need to be complemented further by more sociological accounts of the conditions of media production and everyday routine practices.…”