A genealogy of Islamophobia in a global critical race framework: religion, whiteness, and controlling rationality

Abstract

ABSTRACT Contemporary Islamophobia, while pervasive in the West, has now escalated in societies as distinct as China, India, Myanmar, and Israel in the post-9/11 era. Yet, Islamophobia is not something new, with roots from the centuries after Islam’s founding. This study argues that a global-historical framework is necessary to fully understand Islamophobia’s origins and impact. It extends previous global critical race and racism frameworks and their focus on whiteness to include an emphasis on the epistemological and structural foundations of global Islamophobia. Within these foundations, two key elements are forwarded as the basis for a guiding ontology of whiteness: (1) the Enlightenment-era epistemological transition from religious ways of knowing to knowledge based on controlled and controlling rationality; and (2) the institutions built by European conquest. Using this conceptual framework, the study traces a genealogy of Islamophobia to identify five key moments in its development and resurgence.