Islamophobia scholars diverge on its core driver, whether fear, racism, or nationalism

Evidence

Islamophobia is a complex phenomenon, and the authors represented here have approached it from a variety of perspectives. Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg treat it as a largely unwarranted social anxiety about Islam and Muslims, although they focus on the element of fear of Islam rather than other stereotypes. Kambiz GhaneaBassiri considers it to be a prejudice against Islam that is particularly associated with violence in media representations, although he emphasizes the similarity of Islamophobia to prejudice against other minority “out-groups” like Catholics, Jews, and blacks. Edward Curtis highlights the element of racism in Islamophobia, which he links to state repression of political dissent. Juliane Hammer draws attention to the importance of gender in images of terrorists and the construction of Islamophobia, although she cautions that particular examples of Islamophobia must be analyzed in terms of the particular political and intellectual currents that drive them. Andrew Shryock focuses on Islamophobia as an ideology related to nationalism and the problems of minority identity; he contrasts Islamophobic identification of “the Muslim as enemy” with the equally simplistic concept of “the Muslim as friend,” as found in Islamophilia. The basic point is that, for the many Americans who have no personal experience knowing Muslims as human beings, the overwhelmingly negative images of Islam circulated in the popular media amount to prejudice—defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “preconceived opinion not based on reason or actual experience … unreasoned dislike, hostility, or antagonism towards, or discrimination against, a race, sex, or other class of people.” — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 23

Categorization

Category: Connection Points

• XREF: Directly maps the analytical differences between Shryock, Curtis, Hammer, and others that the reader wants to compare across chapters.
• DEFINE: Supplies the OED definition of prejudice that anchors the whole volume’s pivot from examining Islam to examining the fearer.

Related

• Islamophobia’s core is fear, prejudice, racism, or ideology depending on the analyst’s frame (similarity 0.96)
• The editor defines Islamophobia as largely unwarranted social anxiety, not mere prejudice (similarity 0.86)
• Islamophobia is an ideological construct with real consequences, not mere discourse (similarity 0.86)
• Islamophobia works through structural incentives and preexisting prejudice, not organized networks alone (similarity 0.85)
• Islamophobia is defined differently by scholars, spanning fear, media violence, racism, gender, and nationalism. (similarity 0.84)
• Islamophobia’s material impact exceeds its life as circulating discourse. (similarity 0.84)
• Islamophobia denotes fear, hatred, and hostility toward Muslims and Islam. (similarity 0.83)
• Islamophobia is best understood as an ideology akin to racism (similarity 0.83)
• Islamophobia serves structural rewards for media and political elites, not just bigots (similarity 0.83)
• Islamophobia grows from convergence and proximity, not from cultural separation or polarization. (similarity 0.83)
• Islamophobia is an ideology sustaining negative meaning about Muslims. (similarity 0.82)
• Islamophobia requires an acknowledged Muslim or Islamic element to be identified. (similarity 0.82)
• Islamophobia has multiple sources and resists single-source critique (similarity 0.82)
• Islamophobia operates as entrenched American race politics producing anti-Muslim racism (similarity 0.82)
• Islamophobia grows despite a glaring absence of authoritative scholarly texts (similarity 0.82)