Abstract
During the past two decades, Muslim Community Organizations (MCOs) in the West have increasingly become stakeholders in the public debates and the national consultations regarding the Muslim communities. MCO’s perception of Islamophobia is critical for understanding their collective response to the problem. Much of the Australian literature, nonetheless, tends to subsume Islamophobia within the dynamics of exclusion/inclusion within a social cohesion paradigm, and primarily through a focus on individuals. This article aims to contribute to the existing literature through a deeper contextual understanding of Australian MCOs’ framing of and engagement with Islamophobia in its various manifestations, in order to better cognize its impact on their agentic capacity. Deploying an expanded theoretical framework of agency structure, this article analyzes 25 interviews with representatives of Victorian MCOs, to explore their perceptions of Islamophobia across multiple domains of power—the social, discursive and the political. MCOs’ perceptions of the problem impact their responding anti-Islamophobia civic–political engagements towards soft grassroots connections and Muslims’ empowerment. In light of the findings, the article points for the need to enhance building inter-community solidarity, utilize supportive institutional multicultural schemes and establish a separate Muslim advocacy organization.
Highlights
Since the 1970s, Muslim Community Organizations (MCOs) in Australia have grown in numbers and scope with the growth of the Muslim communities, from providing religious services to providing settlement support services in areas such as economic, social, cultural, recreational, educational and health (Bouma 1997; Amath 2015b)
Do MCOs have to respond to accusations of being sites for isolation and terrorism, in which one in four Australians support policies to stop mosque building (Dunn 2005; Peucker and Ceylan 2016; Hassan and Martin 2015; Underabi 2014), but they have to engender services to respond to the impact of Islamophobia on the Australian Muslim communities
Racism in Australia is not limited to Muslims; they remain the highest recipients of racism in the nation (Hanifie 2019), with one in ten reporting racism, in comparison to one in fifty or one in thirty of Australians in general (Dunn et al 2015)
Summary
Since the 1970s, Muslim Community Organizations (MCOs) in Australia have grown in numbers and scope with the growth of the Muslim communities, from providing religious services to providing settlement support services in areas such as economic, social, cultural, recreational, educational and health (Bouma 1997; Amath 2015b). Religions 2020, 11, 485 surge of challenges to the well-being, safety and civic–political participation of Australian Muslims (Amath 2013; Peucker and Akbarzadeh 2014a; Mukaty 2013). This has generated an academic interest in exploring MCOs’ agency as stakeholders and representatives of Muslims’ lives in Australia and comparably in the West (Kortmann and Rosenow-Williams 2013a, 2013b; Malik 2013; Van Heelsum and Koomen 2011; Machtans 2016). Investigates MCOs’ agency vis-à-vis Islamophobia through focusing on their perceptions and actions in response to the grand question of Muslims’ integration into Western societies (Bacchus 2019; Karim 2017; Malik 2013; Yildiz and Verkuyten 2012; Yukleyen 2009)
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