Muslim American Youth and Volunteerism: Neoliberal Citizenship in the War on Terror

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the possibilities and limits of civic engagement by Muslim American youth in the post-9/11 era and the political implications of volunteerism for Muslim communities subjected to scrutiny and surveillance in the War on Terror. Drawing on ethnographic research on Arab, South Asian, and Afghan American college students in northern California, I explore the ways in which Muslim American volunteer activities are embedded in the regulation of “good” (moderate) or “bad” (radical) Muslim political subjecthood. My research reveals how liberal civil rights, interfaith, and environmental activism projects are sanctioned as forms of civic engagement if they evade challenges to US militarism and foreign policy and uphold the tenets of neoliberal citizenship.