Islamophobia and Lebanon - by Ali Kassem (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Thinking through anti, post, and decolonial theories, this book examines, analyses, and conceptualises 'visibly Muslim' Lebanese women's lived experiences of discrimination, assault, wounding, and erasure. Based on in-depth research alongside over 100 Sunni and Shia participant between 2017 and 2019 it situates these experiences at the intersection of the local and the global and argues for their conceptualisation as a form of structural and lived anti-Muslim racism. In doing this, it discusses the convergences and divergences of anti-Muslim racism in Lebanon with anti-Muslim racism in other parts of both the global north and the global south. It examines the production of this racialisation as well as its workings across spheres of public, private, work, and state - including an analysis of internalised self-hate. It further explores various forms of resistance and negotiation and the contemporary possibilities and impossibilities of working beyond the epistemic framework of Eurocentric modernity. As the first in-depth and extensive study of anti-Muslim racism within Muslim-majority and Arab-majority spaces, it offers an urgent and timely redress to multiple gaps and biases in the study of the Muslim-majority and Arab-majority worlds as well as racialisation broadly and Islamophobia specifically.

Review Quotes

"Ali Kassem's book represents a nuanced, reflective, and honest engagement of listening to those who have been denied dignity and voice in Lebanon. It problematizes the racialization of visible Muslim women as a form of systematic aggression that is embedded in the coloniality of power." --FARID HAFEZ, WILLIAMS COLLEGE, USA

"In this exceptional new book, Ali Kassem offers rare and important insights into the lives of hijabi women in the ex-French colony of Lebanon. Through listening to everyday experiences of Islamophobia, this book masterfully engages the decolonial lens to articulate a principled and urgent account of coloniality in the Muslim World." --KIMBERLY BRAYSON, PROFESSOR OF CRITICAL JURISPRUDENCE, UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER, UK

"This book skillfully demonstrates how anti-Muslim racism thrives in contexts of coloniality. Through rich ethnographies revealing the lived experiences of visibly Muslim women in homes, offices, shops and streets across Lebanon, Ali Kassem craftily interprets how everyday modalities of oppression and exclusion lead to erasure, while attempts to challenge this othering are mostly conducive to dissonance." --MONA HARB, PROFESSOR OF URBAN STUDIES AND POLITICS, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF BEIRUT, LEBANON

Ali Kassem's book represents a nuanced, reflective, and honest engagement of listening to those who have been denied dignity and voice in Lebanon. It problematizes the racialization of visible Muslim women as a form of systematic aggression that is embedded in the coloniality of power.

In this exceptional new book, Ali Kassem offers rare and important insights into the lives of hijabi women in the ex-French colony of Lebanon. Through listening to everyday experiences of Islamophobia, this book masterfully engages the decolonial lens to articulate a principled and urgent account of coloniality in the Muslim World.
KIMBERLY BRAYSON, PROFESSOR OF CRITICAL JURISPRUDENCE, UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER, UK

This book skillfully demonstrates how anti-Muslim racism thrives in contexts of coloniality. Through rich ethnographies revealing the lived experiences of visibly Muslim women in homes, offices, shops and streets across Lebanon, Ali Kassem craftily interprets how everyday modalities of oppression and exclusion lead to erasure, while attempts to challenge this othering are mostly conducive to dissonance.
MONA HARB, PROFESSOR OF URBAN STUDIES AND POLITICS, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF BEIRUT, LEBANON

About the Author

Ali Kassem is a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the National University of Singapore, Singapore. He obtained his PhD from the University of Sussex, UK. Ali was previously a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Edinburgh, UK and an early career fellow with the Arab Council for Social Sciences funded through the Carnegie Corporation of New York.