Decolonising religious education through the prism of affect theory: analytical perspectives for approaching Islamophobia in curriculum and pedagogy

ABSTRACT This paper outlines a set of analytical perspectives grounded in affect theory for decolonising religious education. In particular, these perspectives are: recognising the role of religious feelings; examining the extent to which decolonial affective spaces can be created in the classroom; and, understanding how contemporary public discourses about multiculturalism and religious difference are affectively experienced by students and educators in their everyday lives. It is argued that these perspectives contribute to push further the uncovering of colonial legacies within contemporary religious education, especially in relation to Islamophobia. Further, it is emphasised that it is imperative for the project of decolonising religious education to pay attention to the affective dimensions of decolonisation; this implies not only interrogating the affective legacies of coloniality such as Islamophobia, but also producing decolonised affective communities in classrooms and schools.