Paper short abstract:

Immigration to Poland, previously unknown on a large scale, has intensified debates about identity. Some of the migrants are Muslims, who have even been created as a separate 'race'. Inadvertently, anthropologists critical of racism have contributed to the creation of this new racial concept.

Paper long abstract:

The refugee crisis in 2015 increased Islamophobic attitudes in many parts of Polish society. Influenced by historical images and politically stimulated public discourses, Muslim refugees were created as a separate 'race'. In a racialising manner, perceptions of their religious denomination, physical characteristics, citizenship and territorial origin come together. Typical mechanisms of cultural racism are involved. The invented folk category exploits racialised characteristics in shaping the cognitive map and in structuring relations between people – in this case between Muslim refugees and the (potentially) receiving or host society. These phenomena were visible in the right-wing authorities' racialising and dehumanising campaign and the harsh regime on the Polish-Belarusian border. Ideologies and practices towards Muslim migrants were radically different from those towards refugees from Ukraine, who were perceived as culturally, racially and territorially close.

Anthropologists have responded to these developments in a variety of ways by: protesting against blatant racism in the media, in official statements, and against racially motivated violence; helping refugees; criticising covert racism; and making public anti-racist arguments. In doing so, however, they have contributed to the (re)production of racial categories. The concept of race has been rearticulated in what was until recently a nationally homogeneous community, distinct from colonial metropolises and immigrant societies. Moreover, the Muslim population remains virtually absent what makes Islamophobia ‘phantom.’ In this paper, the intricacies of racism as a (re-)emerging concept and as a practice – both of which are contingent on post-socialist socio-historical circumstances and on disciplinary and public discourses – will be discussed.