Resistance, Disruption, and Parrhesia: Towards a New Methodological Approach to Researching Islamophobia in International Education

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Tuesday IV)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Re(questioning) critical concerns through qualitative research

Proposal

Introduction
In this paper, I posit there are new and urgent ways that scholars, activists, and teachers must approach the study of Islamophobia by engaging in “theoretical questioning” (Kuntz, 2015) of well-worn notions of diversity, inclusion, and social justice in international educational research. Building on a study completed in Jordan with refugees and ongoing work within higher education, I critically reflect on ways to de-mechanize narrative methodology and re-define Islamophobia beyond the interpersonal and static.

Theoretical Framework
This study utilizes Beydoun’s (2016) legal definition of Islamophobia as a deeply pervasive historical structure that “is rooted in understandings of Islam as civilization’s antithesis and is perpetuated by government structures and private citizens. . . a process. . . a dialectic” (p. 108). This more critical definition of Islamophobia acknowledges the deeply-entrenched structure of Orientalist dividing of, as Willinsky (1998) states, “East and West, primitive and civilized. . . how the world has been constructed around centers and margins, and how these divisions were bolstered through forms of scholarship supported by imperialism” (p. 16). With this framing of Islamophobia as intimately connected to Orientalism (Said, 1978), I posit that scholars must take criticalist, risky positions of dissent, of truth-telling in the halls of academe, where diversity programming has often failed to do more than reinforce pre-existing inequities in new packages (see: Ahmed, 2012).

Methods
Utilizing Kuntz’s call to work against the “logics of extraction” in educational research whereby the standardization of method becomes the means to an end, I engage in “theoretical questioning” of my own data from a narrative analytic study I conducted with refugee students in Jordan. I contrast that with ongoing conflicts happening in my own local institution and context where I teach and support pre-service and in-service teacher education students. My discussion of truth-telling, or parrhesia, as it relates to Islamophobia are centered on three key risks/opportunities: (1) resisting well-worn narratives and tropes about Islamophobia as merely political symptoms of a new era disrupting the notion that social justice in academia can only handle so much justice; (2) disrupting institutional silences and taboos around Islamophobia by using data stories from research as a means of every day dissent; and (3) resist pat summaries of narrative research projects “out there” (in this case, Jordan) by engaging in radical truth-telling about injustice as it unfolds “in here” via ever-increasing nationalist, xenophobic policies and actions.

Significance
Islamophobia has reached a boiling point in the U.S. – surveillance, increased policing, immigration restrictions, incidents of hate crimes and vandalism, and increasing tension around anti-Islamophobia activism in the academy has raised the tension, misunderstanding, and oppression of Muslims and those conflated with Islam. Institutions of higher education are important sites for conversations and knowledge production related to culture, diversity, equity, and representation, and pose an opportunity for addressing the larger problems posed by pervasive Islamophobia and equipping scholars with new methodological questions for moving forward.

Author

• Amanda Richey, Kennesaw State University