Islamophobic conspiracism and neoliberal subjectivity: the inassimilable society

Main author: O'Donnell, S. Jonathon
Format: Journal Article           
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id eprints-25396
recordtype eprints
institution SOAS, University of London
collection SOAS Research Online
language English
language_search English
description O’Donnell analyses the confluence of Islamophobia and anti-government conspiracy theory in the works of the far-right think tank, the Center for Security Policy (CSP). He argues that, rather than only being a contemporary form of the religious and racialized demonologies that code ‘Islam’ as being the constitutive outside of ‘the ‘West—irrational, religious and authoritarian versus rational, secular and democratic—Islamophobic conspiracism should also be examined in the context of anxieties over the erosion of personal and state sovereignty under neoliberalization. Mobilizing an Islamophobic demonology that constructs ‘Muslims’ as inassimilable to ‘American’ subjectivity, the CSP's Islamophobic conspiracism projects this construction of absolute alterity on to American social and state systems. In doing so, O’Donnell contends, Islamophobic conspiracism takes neoliberalization's estrangement of the state and its citizens to its logical conclusion, transfiguring the societal processes that impact on the freedom of the individual—notably the state and civil society—into something inassimilable to that individual's claims to self-ownership and self-mastery.
format Journal Article
author O'Donnell, S. Jonathon
author_facet O'Donnell, S. Jonathon
authorStr O'Donnell, S. Jonathon
author_letter O'Donnell, S. Jonathon
title Islamophobic conspiracism and neoliberal subjectivity: the inassimilable society
publisher Taylor and Francis
publishDate 2018
url https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/25396/