Islamophobia as a form of governmentality: Unbearable weightiness of the politics of fear

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to provide a review of the contemporary literature on Islamophobia in Europe, through the lens of immigration issues, socio-economic status and civic participation of Muslim origin migrants and their descendants as well as international constraints. In addition to critically reviewing the current state of knowledge and debate about Islamophobia through the literature, the paper seeks to address the most recent data, survey findings and public discourses available about the current state of Islamophobia in Europe. In the process, some references will also be made to the current rise of Islamophobia in the United States and its differences with the European context. Describing Islamophobia as a form of governmentality in Foucaultian sense, I shall argue that it operates as a form of cultural racism in Europe, which has become apparent together with the process of securitizing and stigmatizing migration and migrants in the age of neo-liberalism. Furthermore, I shall also claim that the growing Islamophobic form of governmentality has produced unintended consequences on both minorities and majorities in a way that has so far led to the political and social instrumentalization of Islam by Muslim origin minorities, and to the deployment of an antimulticulturalist discourse by the majority societies in the west.