When religion is racialized, cultural traits serve as surrogates for biology

Evidence

My use of racialization adopts the definition proffered by Robert Miles: “a dialectical process by which meaning is attributed to particular biological features of human beings, as a result of which individuals may be assigned to a general category of persons which reproduces itself biologically.” Sets of characteristics viewed as inherent to members of a group because of their physical or cultural traits are consequently ascribed to them. Put another way, when a religion is racialized, the religious beliefs and practices of the adherents are associated with cultural traits, which in turn are surrogates for biological traits. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 130

Categorization

• DEFINE: Adopts Robert Miles’ definition of racialization and extends it to religion via the cultural-traits-as-biological-surrogates mechanism.
• QUESTION: The ‘cultural traits as surrogates for biological traits’ step is the mechanism that makes religion racializable — worth testing against lived accounts of anti-Muslim bigotry.
• XREF: connects to: Colonial-era science transformed Muslims into a fixed racialized type — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 180; Culture served as a racializing mode that displaced politics onto religion — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 256