Islamophobia and settler colonialism: Heather Porter Abu Deiab, Islamophobia’s Transnational and Settler Colonial Realities: Gaps Within Ethnic Studies Narratives, PhD Dissertation, San Francisco State University, 2016 | settler colonial studies blog

Islamophobia and settler colonialism: Heather Porter Abu Deiab, Islamophobia’s Transnational and Settler Colonial Realities: Gaps Within Ethnic Studies Narratives, PhD Dissertation, San Francisco State University, 2016

17Jul16

Abstract: This research traces Islamophobia from 1492 Spain to its institutionalization in the U.S. settler colonial state in 1776.1 argue that settler colonial projects against Indigenous communities and colonized communities inform concepts of race that has developed U.S. Islamophobia and its distinct justifications. My project argues for the centrality of this history of Islamophobia and racial and religious oppression to theoretical frameworks within influential critical race studies and ethnic studies. I offer the tools of transnational and intersectional feminism, and recognition of settler colonialism as intertwined with European colonization as an approach to better incorporate these narratives. Finally I discuss how this invisibilization has undermined the institutionalization of the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diaspora (AMED) Studies at San Francisco State University. Ultimately my research underscores the need to recognize Islamophobia in studies of systematic oppression as well as the futility of separating the transnational beginnings of Islamophobia in the Americas as well as the grounded realities and struggles of Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. from critical race studies.

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