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Communicating and Contesting Islamophobia
DOI link for Communicating and Contesting Islamophobia
Communicating and Contesting Islamophobia book
Communicating and Contesting Islamophobia
DOI link for Communicating and Contesting Islamophobia
Communicating and Contesting Islamophobia book
ABSTRACT
In recent years, peoples, practices, and objects perceived as “Muslim” have been construed by certain people and state apparatuses as representative of an existential threat to American security. For example, certain kinds of language use that sounds “Muslim” has led to people being removed from planes and buses despite no immediate threat or justifiable reason. This unfounded fear of and systemic discrimination against Muslims is referred to as Islamophobia and is observable in everyday actions—mosque vandalism, hate speech and hate crimes—and structural discrimination—the sensationalist media coverage of the ‘Muslim threat’, selective policing and surveillance of Muslim communities, and the use of Islamophobic ideologies in election campaigns. This chapter contextualizes how these contemporary formulations of the Muslim figure as Other are situated within a larger sociohistorical frame and draws attention to the micro-level linguistic phenomena to consider how new raciolinguistic formulations about Muslims take shape.