Over the summer, Professor Kirsten Wesselhoeft (Religion Department) and I worked on a project called “Muslims of the Present: Islamic Ethics, Social Critique, and the Inheritances of Immigration in France.”  We spent the summer reading the writings of French Muslim social activists, student led movements, and feminist organizations, and reading about the public reception of their work. We looked at the results that Professor Wesselhoeft collected throughout her eight years of ethnographic research in France and spent a lot of time thinking about the ways in which the identities of groups and individuals impact their relationship with the state.

A large part of the summer included collecting and analyzing primary data from activist groups, from politicians, from philosophers, and from artists in order to gain a deeper understanding of the current dynamics of the Muslim community in France. We analyzed the relationship between French religious groups, politicians, and state policies. Is French secularism simply a thinly veiled disguise for anti-Muslim racism and religious and/or racial discrimination? How does the racialization of Islam impact the work of Muslim communities and civil rights organizations? How does the gendered politics of Islamophobia in France influence the work of Muslim feminist groups?

As Professor Wesselhoeft continues to develop the project, complete various articles, and ultimately finish her book, we plan on taking our research to Denver, Colorado for the American Academy of Religion annual conference in November 2018.  We will present our findings, our progress, and our plans for upcoming research in hopes of receiving feedback from other professionals in the field. Our paper is entitled “‘Muslimness is a Relationship of Power’: The Racialization of Islam in European Anti-Islamophobia Activism.” We are very excited to share our work from the summer, and to continue to develop our understandings of Islam in France and its social, political, and economic manifestations.