Explorations of Islamophobia or anti-Muslim racism predominantly focus on issues of security policy and media representations, set against the backdrop of the global “War on Terror.” This scholarship explores the racialization of Muslim populations across different global contexts, including the UK, Europe, the United States, and China. However, Islamophobia has also been articulated through concerns about the economy, jobs, public services, and national debt in times of austerity. Narratives have emerged around Muslim families in the UK receiving “excessive” welfare benefits, preferential access to social housing, and pressuring public services through “breeding.” This article offers a new way of thinking about the links between Islamophobia and austerity through an engagement with the literature on racial capitalism. The article shows how constructions of Muslim populations as the “undeserving poor” are central to the intersectional racialized and gendered disentitlements of austerity. The analysis draws on the findings from twelve interviews and a six-person focus group with Muslim subjects based in London to illustrate the political economy of austerity Islamophobia. Les explorations de l'islamophobie ou du racisme anti-musulman se concentrent principalement sur des questions de politique de sécurité et de représentation médiatique, avec pour toile de fond la « guerre mondiale contre le terrorisme ». Cette étude explore la racialisation des populations musulmanes dans différents contextes mondiaux, notamment au Royaume-Uni, en Europe, aux États-Unis et en Chine. Toutefois, l'islamophobie a aussi été articulée par des préoccupations liées à l’économie, aux emplois, aux services publics et à la dette nationale en temps d'austérité. Des propos concernant des familles musulmanes du Royaume-Uni qui auraient bénéficié de prestations sociales « excessives », d'un accès privilégié aux logements sociaux et fait pression sur les services publics par leur « reproduction » ont fait leur apparition. Cet article propose une nouvelle manière de penser les liens entre islamophobie et Austérité en impliquant la littérature portant sur le capitalisme racial. Il montre la manière dont les constitutions de populations musulmanes en tant que « pauvres non méritants » sont au centre de l'entrecroisement des désavantages racialisés et sexospécifiques liés à l'austérité. L'analyse s'appuie sur les résultats de douze entretiens et d'un groupe de discussion de six musulmans de Londres pour illustrer l’économie politique de l'islamophobie d'austérité. Las exploraciones de la islamofobia o el racismo antimusulmán se centran predominantemente en cuestiones de política de seguridad y en las representaciones de los medios de comunicación, con el trasfondo de la “guerra contra el terrorismo” mundial. Este estudio explora la racialización de las poblaciones musulmanas a través de diferentes contextos globales, que incluyen el Reino Unido, Europa, Estados Unidos y China. No obstante, la islamofobia también se ha articulado a través de cuestiones sobre la economía, el empleo, los servicios públicos y la deuda nacional en tiempos de austeridad. Han surgido relatos sobre familias musulmanas del Reino Unido que reciben asistencia social “excesiva” y acceso preferencial a la vivienda social, y presionan a los servicios públicos mediante la “reproducción.” Este artículo ofrece una nueva manera de pensar sobre los vínculos entre la islamofobia y la austeridad a través de un compromiso con la literatura sobre el capitalismo racial. El artículo muestra cómo la construcción de las poblaciones musulmanas como “pobres no merecedores” es fundamental para la revocación intersectorial de derechos raciales y de género de la austeridad. El análisis se basa en las conclusiones de doce entrevistas y un grupo de debate de seis personas que tratan temas musulmanes con sede en Londres a fin de ilustrar la economía política de la austeridad islamofóbica.

Increasingly, institutions are amplifying work on race equality, in order to engage with movements for Black lives and decolonising. This brings universities into relations with individual and communal issues of whiteness, white fragility and privilege, double and false consciousness, and behavioural code switching. Inside formal structures, built upon cultures and practices that have historical and material legitimacy, engaging with such issues is challenging. The tendency is to engage in formal accreditation, managed through engagement with established methodologies, risk management practices and data reporting. However, this article argues that the dominant articulation of the institution, which has its own inertia, which reinforces whiteness and dissipates radical energy, needs to be readdressed in projects of decolonising. This situates the communal work of the institution against the development of authentic relationships as a movement of dignity.

Since the advent of the 'War on Terror' British Muslims have been designated as a source of anxiety by politicians, journalists and publics alike. Fears that began over terrorism have extended to the opening of Islamic faith schools, the meaning of clothing and halal slaughter. Critical scholarship that engages with these developments in the fields of politics and international relations tends to view them through paradigms of (in) antagonistic and anxiety-inducing structures and practices underpinning British society, of which we do not speak.

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Abstract:We stand at a key juncture: a Western political crisis arose in 2016-17 to match the deep economic crisis of the preceding decade. Events and new social movements of recent years seem to hail the collapse of the project of liberal democracy, though it is hard to see what will replace it. Among the conceptual and analytic tools bequeathed by Marx are those necessary to better understand and anticipate the direction of this key historical moment -from Donald Trump, Brexit and the so-called 'culture wars' to the horizon of liberal democracy itself. In this reflection, I suggest some ways in which Marx's early thoughts on the liberal state and civil society can and should help us to better understand and explain our present predicament. To say that the Young Marx can help us today with what he called 'the ruthless critique of everything existing' is not to say that he can do so alone. It is precisely the issues overlooked or 'fudged' by Marx and Marxism -gender, sexuality, and race/racism for example -that now sit at the centre of our 'culture wars', alongside but never reducible to the contradictions and crises of capitalism. I conclude that it is only with the help of other writers of the 20th and 21st centuries, from Antonio Gramsci to Frantz Fanon and bell hooks, that we can usefully mobilise the Young Marx today, to critique the world as we find it and especially -the very 'point' of theory according to Marx -to change it.