Islamophobia: Lived Experiences of Online and Offline Victimisation

106 Pages·2016·0.67 MB·English

by  Irene Zempi and Imran Awan

IRENE ZEMPI
IMRAN AWAN
ISLAMOPHOBIA
Lived Experiences of Online and
Offine Victimisation
P O L I C Y P R E S S R E S E A R C H
IRENE ZEMPI AND IMRAN AWAN
ISLAMOPHOBIA
Lived experiences of online and offine
victimisation
P O L I C Y P R E S S R E S E A R C H
First published in Great Britain in 2016 by
Policy Press North America ofce:
University of Bristol Policy Press
1-9 Old Park Hill c/o The University of Chicago Press
Bristol 1427 East 60th Street
BS2 8BB Chicago, IL 60637, USA
UK t: [phone]
t: [phone] f: [phone]
Contents
Acknowledgements v
About the authors vii
one Understanding Islamophobia 1
two Research methods 15
three Triggers of Islamophobic violence 25
four Nature and extent of online and offine Islamophobia 43
fve Impacts of online and offine Islamophobia 55
six Prevention and responses 69
References 85
Index 93
III
v
Acknowledgements
We wish to thank all the participants in this study, who came forward
to share their individual stories. Also, we wish to thank Tell MAMA
for their support throughout this study.
Irene Zempi and Imran Awan
v
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About the authors
Irene Zempi is the Director of the Nottingham Centre for Study
and Reduction of Bias, Prejudice and Hate Crime, and a Lecturer in
Criminology at Nottingham Trent University.
Imran Awan is an Associate Professor in Criminology and Deputy
Director of the Centre for Applied Criminology at Birmingham City
University.
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UNDERSTANDING ISLAMOPHOBIA
The term Islamophobia has come under increasing scrutiny after the
rise in Islamophobic hate crimes post 9/11 and more recently following
the Paris attacks in 2015. Both these incidents have led to a rise in
Islamophobic hostility, and reported hate crimes committed against
Muslim communities have increased (Littler and Feldman, 2015).
As a result, Islamophobia has become an important and emerging
concept, and it relates to wider issues around the racialisation and
the ‘othering’ of Muslim communities. However, whilst there is no
universal interpretation or defnition of Islamophobia, the debate
about what the term means is often stoked up by people’s fears
about Muslims. For example, increasingly the term ‘Islamophobic
hate crime’ is used within the context of Muslims sufering a form
of hate crime. Despite these debates in the United Kingdom (UK),
it is acknowledged that hate crime is not always motivated by hate;
rather, it can be motivated because of hostility or prejudice towards a
person’s disability, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, sexual orientation
or transgender identity. This chapter focuses on the concepts and
terminology surrounding Islamophobia and hate crime, and argues that
contemporary Islamophobia is a refection of a historical Islamophobic
phenomenon which was constructed in colonial times, but which has
increased signifcantly in recent times, creating a deeper resentment,
hostility and fear of Islam and of Muslims than existed before.
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