Contemporary racism and Islamaphobia in Australia

Abstract

Contemporary anti-Muslim sentiment in Australia is reproduced through a racialization that includes well rehearsed stereotypes of Islam, perceptions of threat and inferiority, as well as fantasies that the Other (in this case Australian Muslims) do not belong, or are absent. These are not old or colour-based racisms, but they do manifest certain characteristics that allow us to conceive a racialization process in relation to Muslims. Three sets of findings show how constructions of Islam are important means through which racism is reproduced. First, public opinion surveys reveal the extent of Islamaphobia in Australia and the links between threat perception and constructions of alien-ness and Otherness. The second data set is from a content analysis of the racialized pathologies of Muslims and their spaces. The third is from an examination of the undercurrents of Islamaphobia and national cultural selectivity in the politics of responding to asylum seekers. Negative media treatment is strongly linked to antipathetic government dispositions. This negativity has material impacts upon Australian Muslims. It sponsors a more widespread Islamaphobia, (mis)informs opposition to mosque development and ever more restrictive asylum seeker policies, and lies behind arson attacks and racist violence. Ultimately, the racialization of Islam corrupts belonging and citizenship for Muslim Australians

Australians’ Views on Cultural Diversity, Nation and Migration, 2015-16

“…Their mixed-method research draws on three data sets including qualitative and quantitative responses to three surveys and print media to show how Muslims are constituted as culturally inferior, barbaric, misogynistic, fanatical, intolerant, and ultimately alien. Such widespread negative constructions of Muslims in public and media discourse identified by Dunn et al (2007) parallel the high rates of negative attitudes towards Muslims and Middle-Eastern Australians in our survey. Respondents' feelings towards Anglo-Australians and Asian Australians were the most positive at 59.7 per cent and 53.3 per cent of respondents reporting positive dispositions towards the two groups, respectively.…”

“…When asked about their feelings towards particular groups, 31.5 per cent of respondents claimed to have 'negative' feelings (including 'somewhat' negative and 'very negative' feelings) towards Muslim Australians, and 22.3 per cent claimed to have 'negative' feelings (including 'somewhat' negative and 'very negative' feelings) towards Middle-Eastern Australians (see Table 5 Australia (2009) argues that in Australia, Islamophobia manifests itself largely as a form of cultural racism that is 'intertwined with a widespread anxiety and resentment felt towards migration and multiculturalism amongst the dominant white Anglo-Celtic Australians' (p. 21). Similarly, Dunn et al (2007) argue that anti-Muslim attitudes in Australia are 'reproduced through racialisation that includes well-rehearsed stereotypes of Islam' (p. 564) and create a 'culture' rather than 'colour' racism. Their mixed-method research draws on three data sets including qualitative and quantitative responses to three surveys and print media to show how Muslims are constituted as culturally inferior, barbaric, misogynistic, fanatical, intolerant, and ultimately alien.…”

20201218

“…Muslims are more likely to be stopped and searched for security reasons, and more likely to be tried in the courts (Poynting & Perry, 2007). Consequently, media and governmental policies have contributed to the rising rates of Islamophobia, which is present in the form of unfounded fears, and prejudicial and stereotypical thinking (Bouma, 2011;Dunn et al, 2007;Ho, 2007;Kabir, 2007). There is an element of "us versus them" thinking on the behalf of non-Muslim Australians, which is tarnishing the social inclusivity and harmony in Australia (Ata, 2015;Hopkins, 2011;Poynting & Mason, 2006).…”

Minority Youth and Social Transformation in Australia: Identities, Belonging and Cultural Capital

“…Our projects were initiated by government bodies during the period of a national Labor Government between 2007 and 2011, and were carried out for the federal bureaucracy of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. In each case the research was framed by a wider public debate, each with their own element of moral panic, about the integration of immigrant youth, their identification with Australian social values as expressed by key elites and reinforced in the media, and concerns expressed by the communities from which they came about stereotyping, marginalisation and social exclusion (Dunn, Klocker, & Salabay, 2007).…”

“…Importantly the diversity of Australian society means that the huge concentrations of particular immigrant groups in specific localities that characterise many European countries and have been linked to the "failure of multiculturalism" (Jakubowicz, 2013;Meer & Modood, 2011;Modood, 2012) are not part of the Australian urban scene. Nevertheless long-entrenched structures of racial exclusion and hierarchies continue, especially in some areas of major cities, driven in part by regular moral panics over threats to the social order that these immigrants and their children might represent (Dunn, Klocker, & Salabay, 2007;Markus, 2014).…”