The Muslim: Islamophobia as disembodiment

Abstract

ABSTRACT Islamophobia is not just a fear of people ascribing to the religion of Islam, if that was the case simple religious conversions would erase hatred. In the world of surging Alt-Right movements, Islamophobia embodies racism, anti-migrant xenophobia, and orientalism. This article explores Alt-Right groups in the US and Europe, traces their ideological gurus, deconstructs political speeches, reports of rightwing think tanks to understand how Islamophobia is a process of disembodiment. Inspired by Bourdieu’s habitus, and feminist work on embodiment/disembodiment, this article argues that the Muslim narrative thoroughly disembodies the Muslim body. Disembodiment is annihilation before corporeal death ensues, the Muslim does not get to mark her corporeal and intellectual existence. Disembodiment nullifies the Muslim’s life, she is only valuable in death, because disembodiment reclaims her death as a vanquished terrorist, as a murdered jihadi, or a bombed city where weapons of mass destruction or uranium may have existed.