The rise of Islamophobia across the globe has manifested in a policing regime that engages in the profiling, surveillance, torture, and detention of people along racial, ethnic, and religious lines, has justified the militarization of foreign policy, and has resulted in an unprecedented expansion of security apparatuses that impacts all people.
The tragic September 11 attacks that happened seventeen years ago this week were followed by a dramatic increase in the demonization of and violence against Muslims. Although the phenomenon of Islamophobia is not new, its concentrated rise since 2001 has resulted in well-organized, well-funded Islamophobia movements across the world, a normalization of anti-Muslim rhetoric in politics and culture, a dramatic increase in hate crimes against Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim, and, in the United States, a coordinated effort to legalize Islamophobia through an "anti-Sharia" legislation movement which has proliferated through intentionally misconstrued information surrounding Muslims.
The Haas Institute has been closely tracking the rise of Islamophobia with research and findings that challenge the social, political, and legal mechanisms used to demonize and "other" Muslims. In response to the experiences of Muslim Americans and the Muslim community at large, our work in this area seeks to counteract discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance and to expose the power structures that generate them.
Today we announce the newest addition to this body of research, "Islamophobia in the United States: A Reading Resource Pack, a catalog of more than 430 citations that provides a comprehensive, thematic literature overview of current academic research on Islamophobia in the United States. This effort brings to light the wide range of research on Islamophobia being produced in the last few decades. Authored by Rhonda Itaoui and Elsadig Elsheikh of our Global Justice Program, the Reading Resource Pack provides a shorthand summary of publications listed acoss ten themes, which range from "Theorizing the Field" to "Gendered Dimensions" to "Young American Muslims and Belonging." Read the Introduction for the full list of themes and more about the report.
We hope you will explore and use this new publication as a companion resource for advocacy, training, and education on the study of Islamophobia and how to counter it.
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