The relational dynamics of racialised policing: community policing for counterterrorism, suspect communities, and Muslim Americans’ provisional belonging

Abstract

ABSTRACT For over two decades, policies for countering violent extremism have enacted racial logics to target Muslim communities as suspect communities. While much research in this vein examines either the enactment of counterterrorism policies or Muslim communities’ responses, less is known about how racialised policies are experienced through relational dynamics between these two entities: police who implement counterterrorism policies and their targets – Muslim communities. Bridging critical citizenship, socio-legal, and migration studies, this article conceptualises how racialised policies shape the relationship between agents of the state and suspect communities. With unique analytic leverage from semi-structured interviews with law enforcement and focus groups with Muslim communities, findings show that police consistently deploy racial logics of CVE to distinguish between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Muslims, rewarding the former with resources and protection and punishing the latter with surveillance and criminalisation. In turn, these definitions inhibit Muslim Americans’ religious and cultural freedom, political expression and collective action, and legitimize their racial profiling and surveillance. Tradeoffs to provisional inclusion mean not only accepting racial logics but also reproducing them within their own communities. This article expands our understanding of how the meanings of belonging are continually negotiated between the state and racialised communities.