Anti-Muslim hate on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean: Lebanon, the Hijab, and modernity/coloniality. Issue 12 (26th September 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kassem, Ali
• Is Part Of: Ethnic and racial studies. Volume 44:Issue 12(2021)
• Page Start: 2213
• Page End: 2233
• Publication Date: 2021-09-26
• Subjects: Anti-Muslim hate -- racism -- hijab -- Lebanon -- Islam -- decolonial; Race -- Periodicals; Race relations -- Periodicals; Ethnic groups -- Periodicals; 305.805
• DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2021.1881143
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0141-9870

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Informed by the theorization of the modernity/(de)coloniality studies collective, this paper thinks alongside hijabi women in Lebanon – a small Arab Mediterranean country – and their lived experiences in "mainstream Lebanese society". Drawing on six-months of qualitative fieldwork through in-depth interviews and focus groups with photo-elicitation, the paper documents and analyses lived experiences of discrimination, exclusion and erasure. Identifying dehumanization, civility and progress, and a present potent wider rejection of Islam in Lebanon, it argues for a framing of participant's shared experiences as anti-Muslim racism under modernity/coloniality and highlights the need to de-exceptionalize the region and the analytical tools mobilized to understand it.