Paper short abstract:

Building upon the example of debates about the meanings of Islamophobia,the paper explores how difference is produced in contemporary Britain in discourses about the ways in which prejudice directed at Muslims and other groups understood as ethnic or religious minorities could be formally defined.

Paper long abstract:

The paper will contribute to the panel by exploring how difference is produced in contemporary Britain in discourses about the ways in which prejudice directed at specific groups understood as ethnic or religious minorities should (or should not) be formally defined. In the UK, recent years have witnessed intense public and political debates surrounding the development of definitions of Islamophobia, which in their turn have generated a dynamic academic discussion about the potential that such definitions may have for fighting inequality and securing community empowerment (Sayyid and Vakil 2010). The paper will use as its starting point the discussion about the implementation of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims definition of Islamophobia, to contribute both to theoretical research about the construction of difference and to empirical studies on the lived experiences of Muslim communities and other minority groups in Europe. Building upon long-term ethnographic engagement with my UK-based Muslim interlocutors and an analysis of political discourses about formal definitions of Islamophobia, I will explore how diverse accounts of difference are actively managed and mobilised by a wide range of agents, as they navigate through colonial legacies, societal attitudes towards Muslims, and legislative realities pertaining to race based crime in Europe.