Invasion and colonization: Islamophobia and anti-refugee sentiment in West Virginia

Abstract

Amidst a rise in hate crimes, hate group organizing, and anti-Muslim and anti-refugee policy making in the United States, this paper examines efforts by a national hate group to organize opposition to the resettlement of Syrian Muslim refugees in West Virginia, a non-traditional refugee destination. Through analysis of materials disseminated at a public seminar titled the “Invasion and Colonization of West Virginia,” we identify four unique social-spatial themes this group is using to make alarmist and conspiratorial claims about Muslim refugees invading and colonizing the state and nation. These themes include the language of smallness, which affixes a white and Christian identity to certain spaces and suggests that these spaces are threatened. Spatial themes of ‘fresh territory’ and ‘sowing seeds’ are used to frame refugee resettlement as an assertion of social-spatial control to change ‘small spaces’ and ultimately change America. Claims of invasion and colonization function powerfully through the fourth theme of the “Other Islamic Bomb,” which frames Muslim women’s fertility as the vehicle of the invasion and colonization. This paper adds to emerging literature on the geographies of Islamophobia by examining not only the convergence of anti-Muslim and anti-refugee sentiment but its mobilization in regionally and locally specific contexts. The analysis demonstrates the dynamic interplay between spatial and social claims on which these alarmist narratives rely to vilify Muslims and refugees and to foment opposition in places not historically associated with immigration or refugee resettlement.

Welcoming Strangers: Protestant Churches’ Involvement in Refugee Resettlement in the United States

“…(Pettigrew, Wagner, and Christ 2007). With mainstreaming of far-right politics during Trump administration, the number of anti-Muslim incidents reached a record number, which surpassed the historical peak following the September 11 attacks (Gorman and Culcasi 2021).…”

“…The number of anti-Muslim and anti-refugee groups also rose dramatically in this period, contributing to the rising anti-refugee sentiment in the nation (Beydoun 2018;Gorman and Culcasi 2021).…”

“…(Pettigrew, Wagner, and Christ 2007). With mainstreaming of far‐right politics during Trump administration, the number of anti‐Muslim incidents reached a record number, which surpassed the historical peak following the September 11 attacks (Gorman and Culcasi 2021). The number of anti‐Muslim and anti‐refugee groups also rose dramatically in this period, contributing to the rising anti‐refugee sentiment in the nation (Beydoun 2018; Gorman and Culcasi 2021).…”

Gendered Orientalism and Syrian Women Refugees

“…Spewing lies and hate speech about Muslims, Syrians, and refugees more broadly (Nagel 2016;Gokariksel & Smith 2017;Bose 2022), he drew on a longstanding gendered orientalist discourse that Muslim men are backward and violent; and more specifically that Syrian Muslim men might be terrorists. 1 Syrian refugees were also framed as burdens to the U.S. economy and as taking federal funds from U.S. citizens who deserved the money more (Gorman & Culcasi 2021;Bose 2022), and sometimes as being cowards for fleeing war. Trump and many of his supporters supplemented their argument that Syrian male refugees were a security threat by asserting that Muslim women are oppressed victims of Islam and Muslim men.…”

“…Indeed, Syrian refugees broadly, and women and children specifically, were represented in left leaning media and pro-refugee resettlement reporting as victims of a horrific war (Terman 2017;Aswad 2019;Chen et al 2022). In some instances, Syrians' victimization due to war was supplemented with the gendered orientalist discourse that Syrian women were also victims of Islam and of Muslim men (Alhayek 2014;Athamneh et al 2021;Gorman & Culcasi 2021). As such, Syrian Muslim women were framed as victims-to-be-saved not only from war, but also from oppressive Islamic practices.…”