Tuesday, November 1, 2016
Dr. Tania Saeed, faculty at the Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences (MGSHSS) recently published her book, Islamophobia and Securitization. Religion, Ethnicity and the Female Voice, under the Palgrave Politics of Identity and Citizenship Series (Palgrave Macmillan, UK). The book explores everyday realities of young Muslim women in Britain, who are portrayed as antithetical to the British way of life in media and political discourse.
The book captures how geo-political events, and national tragedies continue to implicate individuals and communities at the domestic and local level, communities that have no connection to such tragedies and events, other than being associated with a religio-ethnic identity. Dr. Saeed shows how Muslim women are caught within the spectrum of an oxymoronic “vulnerable-fanatic”, always perceived to be ‘at risk’ of being 'radicalised'. Focusing on educated Muslim females, the book explores experiences of Islamophobia and securitization inside and outside educational institutions, and highlights individual and group acts of resistance through dialogue, with Muslim women challenging the metanarrative of insecurity and suspicion that plagues their everyday existence in Britain.
Reviews:
Professor Hamid Dabashi, Columbia University, USA:
“As the incessant rise of Islamophobia highlights the worse, otherwise hidden, blind spots of liberal democracies, the crisis has in turn generated a path breaking body of scholarship by critical thinkers across social sciences and humanities. This book is one exquisite example of such scholarship, where you will read a critical encounter between the convergent concepts of ‘religion’ and ‘ethnicity’ in a provocative conjunction with the female voice. This is a piece of magnificent scholarship and superb critical thinking.”
Professor Stuart Croft, University of Warwick, UK:
“It is hard to over-emphasise how important this book is. The author has produced a sharp and incisive volume, which engages the reader throughout. It really is a book for our times.”
