Racialisation of Islam and Boundaries of Citizenship

Islamophobia is one of the ways in which racism and Whiteness perform in our contemporary world. My presentation asks what are the intersections of Islam, racism and lived citizenship. It theorises the ways in which the racialisation of Islam operates in everyday encounters. Through an interdisciplinary lens, it argues the continuous mechanism through which Whiteness and racial order are reproduced in relation to Islam and its outcome in terms of lived citizenship and the labour imposed on racialised bodies. The spatial, affective, relational and enactment aspects of lived citizenship are carefully analysed in relation to the racialisation of Islam. My theorisation is based on the fieldwork research conducted from 2020 to the present in the Nordic context. The participants in this research come from diverse religious and non-religious identities which allows room for theorising the ways racialisation of Islam operates. While the discussion connects the racialisation of Islam with the broader geopolitics of the current time, the context of Nordic is important since it is being represented as “the role model” for (gender) equality and secularisation in the public discourses. After reflecting on my fieldwork analysis, my presentation will point at the uneven labour of some bodies to dismantle such structures (enacting citizenship). It claims that any attempt to proceed with decolonising citizenship needs to confront the foundations of racialization processes which shape our participation in racial structures. It invites everyone to reflect and rethink how they participate in such structures. This may open pathways for dismantling the same structure.