The unbearable anxiety of being: Ideological fantasies of British Muslims beyond the politics of security

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Main author: Ali, Nadya
Other authors: Whitham, Ben
Format: Journal Article           
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id eprints-35561
recordtype eprints
institution SOAS, University of London
collection SOAS Research Online
language English
language_search English
description A succession of media scandals and policy arguments in the UK in recent years has been integral to the construction of a so-called ‘Muslim Problem’. Media and political attention paid to Muslims in British public life, across a vast and varied range of issues, suggests a social preoccupation that exceeds the security framing the ‘War on Terror’ once imposed. In this article, we develop and apply Slavoj Žižek’s Lacanian theory of ideology to produce an original conceptual and analytic framework centred on the social functions served by, as well as the co-constitution of, anxiety and fantasy. We then apply this framework to explore three scandals relating to child sexual exploitation, halal meat and education. We show that the representations of British Muslims that these scandals entail are best understood as ideological fantasies, mobilized to suture traumatic gaps and conceal contradictions in wider social practices around such issues. We argue that the unrelenting media and political focus on myriad aspects of British Muslims’ imagined lives is symptomatic of what Žižek calls an ‘unbearable anxiety’: Islamophobic ideological fantasies conjure a ‘conceptual Muslim’ to sidestep confrontation with the Lacanian ‘Real’ – antagonistic and anxiety-inducing structures and practices underpinning British society, of which we do not speak.
format Journal Article
author Ali, Nadya
author_facet Ali, Nadya
Whitham, Ben
authorStr Ali, Nadya
author_letter Ali, Nadya
author2 Whitham, Ben
author2Str Whitham, Ben
title The unbearable anxiety of being: Ideological fantasies of British Muslims beyond the politics of security
publisher Sage
publishDate 2018
url https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/35561/

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