I am not the info desk for Islam and Arabs: the racialization of Islam and boundaries of citizenship

ABSTRACT

By bridging the discussions on critical race and critical citizenship studies, this paper asks how the racialization of Islam shapes the lived citizenship of minorities in the Finnish context. The study focuses on a group of Finnish citizens and residents who have backgrounds in southwest Asia. The 26 people in this group were asked questions about their lived experiences of citizenship and the role of religion in their experiences. The results indicate that regardless of the participants’ religious identifications as Muslims or non-Muslims, their belonging was challenged through the mechanism of racialized gaze that framed them as strangers who do not fit into the epistemic community of whiteness. The study introduces the terms selective secularism and labour of explaining to reflect upon the mechanism through which the racialized gaze operates in everyday encounters. At times, some research participants resisted and contested the racialized gaze.

KEYWORDS:

• Lived citizenship
• epistemic community
• whiteness
• racialization of Islam
• selective secularism
• labour of explaining

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The participants were appropriately informed about the purpose and content of the research, as well as their personal data processing. When following ethical research principles, the researcher did not identify physical or mental harm caused by this research. The study did not deviate from ethical principles, thus it was not required to undergo official ethical review at the University of Helsinki.