Islamophobia and Parrhesia: Knots of Truth-Telling in Institutional Spaces

• In Event: Toward mending divisions: Critical scholars’ auto-ethnographic community-building efforts

Abstract

I engage in “theoretical questioning” (Kuntz, 2015) my own work on Islamophobia in higher education. Drawing from previous and current research, I critically reflect on ways I struggled with the mechanical aspects of qualitative methodology to re-define Islamophobia beyond the interpersonal and static, resisting the cult of the procedural, and envisioning a more expansive space by following the “provocative” (St. Pierre, 2018).

Beydoun (2016) defines Islamophobia as “understandings of Islam as civilization’s antithesis. . . perpetuated by government structures and private citizens” (p. 108) rather than a momentary act of aggression or a personal orientation. I thus interrogate data from my work with refugee students in Jordan, contrasting that with ongoing conflicts in my own institutional context around social justice. With this framing of Islamophobia, I posit that scholars must take critical, risky positions of dissent and truth-telling, recognizing diversity programming has failed to do more than reinforce pre-existing inequities.

Author

• Amanda Bethel Richey, Kennesaw State University