Dominant scholarship identifies Islamophobia as a form of racism where race and religion have become conflated in social structures. These important analyses form a complex ideological, social, political, and historical construction. However, the authors in this volume argue that current scholarship does not account for the relationship between secularism and race in social structures in theorizing Islamophobia. Advocating for a decolonial approach to better theorize the phenomenon, Secularism, Race, and the Politics of Islamophobia intervenes in this area of scholarship to call attention to the ways secularism is embedded in and drives the disciplinary institutions of the State—such as law, political groups, government entities, and bureaucracies—to authorize racism and the racialization of Muslims and Islam. Highlighting the extent and nature of contemporary scholarly debates as well as public efforts to counter Islamophobia, the contributors to this collection address and deepen awareness of its present-day formations in secular neoliberal societies. Scholars and students from anthropology, sociology, law, political science, and beyond will benefit from this interdisciplinary study.

Contributors: Khaled Al-Qazzaz, Jinan Bastaki, Dustin J. Byrd, Zeinab Diab, Alain Gabon, Fatimah Jackson-Best, Roshan Arah Jahangeer, Areesha Khan, Sharmin Sadequee, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Saul J. Takahashi, Nakita Valerio. Foreword by Jasmin Zine.

Sharmin Sadequee is a cultural anthropologist of religion and secularism with a research focus on Islam and Muslims in North America. Her research explores how human beings construct and are constructed by their social, political, and legal structures, and by their natural and built environment in a globalized world. She has spent the last 15 years researching and recording the experiences of settler-immigrant and natural-born American Muslims affected by surveillance, terrorism prosecutions, and securitized prisons, and their engagement in social justice movements. Her research also includes Muslim American experiences of disputes over religious land use in Islamic cemetery and mosque constructions and environmental sustainability. Her scholarship is interdisciplinary and engaged in the fields of law, religious studies, Islamic studies, secularism studies, political science, environmental studies, and colonialism. She has held a post-doctoral position at the University of Alberta-Augustana and earned a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from Michigan State University.

Sharmin Sadequee's profile page

“In this work, the contributors explore how Islamophobia is institutionalized and manifested within supposedly secular states. By reviewing its complex interactions with migration, neo-liberalism, and histories of coloniality, readers will gain a deeper and more nuanced understanding of Islamophobia.” Naved Bakali, University of Windsor

“Secularism, Race, and the Politics of Islamophobia brings together diverse disciplinary and regional perspectives on the pressing issue of Islamophobia. Focusing on topics like secularism and post-secularism, anti-terror laws, anti-Semitism, mental health, women's experiences, and activism against Islamophobia, it gathers important issues into a cohesive volume.” Tahir Abbas, Leiden University