Racialized and Gendered Experiences In How Bangladeshi Muslim Immigrants Navigate Post-9/11 Surveillance and Discipline

• In Event: Asia and Asian American Section Roundtables Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 10: Asia and Asian America Section Roundtable - Race and Racism

Abstract

The post-9/11 surveillance and discipline of Muslims by the state, both formally and informally, directly and indirectly, rendered public spaces and the private home potential grounds for violence against racialized Muslims, thus impacting every intimate part of Muslims' lives. Through interviews with Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants who lived in New Jersey after 9/11, I examine how Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants make sense of their identities and navigate public spaces given their racialization as South Asians and Muslims in the post-9/11 context that heavily targeted them. The study participants deployed multiple tactics to protect themselves and their families in light of this increased state and civilian surveillance and Islamophobia, such as conspicuous patriotism and self-discipline. Participants also asserted claim to both an American and Bangladeshi identity, which I argue is a form of resistance and new identity-making in the context of widespread Islamophobia that constructs them as antithetically American. Finally, the gendered nature of the respondents' experiences of surveillance and discipline showcase how the ways Muslim women’s bodies are racialized have historically been constructed as subject to domination and subjugation. The insights into how Bangladeshi Muslims navigate and manage being objects of hyper-surveillance and discipline can provide potential points of solidarity for other groups facing similar experiences.

Author

• Pia Furkan, University of Massachusetts-Amherst