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ABSTRACT
One of the leading interpretations of Islamophobia in Europe is anti-Muslim racism. Scholars who conceptualize Islamophobia as a form of racism typically draw on the theoretical framework of cultural racism to contend that Muslims in Europe are discriminated against not only on the basis of religion and culture, but also on the basis of physical features or ancestry. This strand of contention is based on the fact that most Muslims in Europe are non-white immigrants from Asia, Africa and the Middle East and, as a consequence, generally appear phenotypically different from the white majority in European societies. In this article, Ejiofor argues that, even though the theoretical cultural racism framework utilized by some European and other western scholars to analyse Islamophobia in Europe is quite pertinent to some forms of Islamophobia in European or western societies, it does not apprehend the lived experiences of discrimination against Muslims in many non-European societies. Ejiofor contends that the cultural racism framework tends to sidestep the fact that Islamophobia is a global phenomenon that occurs in some non-European societies where colour racism is non-existent, where race―or racial identity―is not a relevant social category, and where discrimination against Muslims hardly has anything to do with whiteness or non-whiteness. What, then, does Islamophobia look like in some non-European contexts where racism―as the term is ordinarily used in Europe to refer to discrimination of peoples based on physical traits or ancestry―does not make sense? Drawing on the Nigerian context, in which discrimination against Muslims reflects ethnoreligious and ethnoregional conflicts arising from the complex political history of the Nigerian state, Ejiofor posits that Islamophobia in some non-European societies is about tribalism, as it involves the grouping of Muslims into a single tribe and associating Muslimness with terrorism despite the absence of racial identity. He proposes the novel framework of anti-Muslim tribalism so as to capture Islamophobia beyond the West.
Notes
1 Jal-ālu’l-Dīn Rūmī, Rūmī, Poet and Mystic (1207–1273), ed. and trans. from the Persian by Reginald A. Nicolson (London: George Allen and Unwin 1950), 76.
2 Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam (London: Bloomsbury 2017), 1.
3 Ibid., 4.
4 Ibid., 1.
5 Steven Vertovec, ‘Super-diversity and its implications’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 30, no. 6, 2007, 1024–54.
6 Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, 2. See also Ian Almond, ‘Misrecognising the problem: Douglas Murray’s The Strange Death of Europe’, Middle East Eye (online), 11 August 2017, available at www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/misrecognising-problem-douglas-murrays-strange-death-europe (viewed 13 February 2024).
7 Eric Kaufmann, ‘Guilt-edged bonds’, Literary Review, June 2017, available at https://literaryreview.co.uk/guilt-edged-bonds (viewed 13 February 2024).
8 Gaby Hinsliff, ‘The Strange Death of Europe by Douglas Murray review―gentrified xenophobia’, Guardian (online), 6 May 2017, available at www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/06/strange-death-europe-immigration-xenophobia (viewed 13 February 2023).
9 Almond, ‘Misrecognising the problem’.
10 Ibid.
11 Hafez, for example, identifies three ‘schools of thought' that are generally used in Islamophobia Studies―namely (1) prejudice, (2) racism and (3) decoloniality. However, he maintains that the racism approach―and this encompasses the cultural racism theory―is ‘perhaps the most widespread current approach within academic literature, finding especially large―although not exclusive―acceptance among the sections of that academic community that prefer to employ the notion of anti-Muslim racism rather than Islamophobia.' See Farid Hafez, ‘Schools of thought in Islamophobia Studies: prejudice, racism, and decoloniality’, Islamophobia Studies Journal, vol. 4, no. 2, 2018, 210-25 (221). It seems to me that the fact that the racism approach dominates the literature on Islamophobia is not necessarily evidence that it applies to all contexts within and beyond Europe. The eccentric German cultural critic Friedrich Nietzsche admonishes us to be wary of what he calls consensus sapientium―the agreement of the wise―not least because scholarly agreement is not necessarily evidence of truth. See Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, or How to Philosophize with the Hammer (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company 1997), 12. Thus, there is the necessity, I think, to problematize widely accepted presuppositions to decipher whether they can travel beyond the context in which they were generated.
12 While this article concentrates on European societies as a counter to Nigerian society, other non-European states that are historically white will share with Europe a large helping of colour racism in their attitudes towards Muslim immigrants.
13 For example, the Routledge International Handbook of Islamophobia is dominated by European case studies and, notably, features no case from the African continent. See Irene Zempi and Imran Awan (eds), The Routledge International Handbook of Islamophobia (London and New York: Routledge 2019). So much for an ‘international’ handbook on Islamophobia that appears parochial.
14 For example, Wariboko contends just this although he allows that Islamophobia may become salient with the emergence of Boko Haram jihadists. Onyinyechi P. C. Wariboko, ‘Prospects of Islamophobia in Nigeria and its dangers’, Journal of Religion and Human Relations, vol. 7, no. 1, 2015, 42–57 (47). I disagree with this statement because Islamophobia has existed in Nigeria since at least the colonial era.
15 Zaheer Baber, ‘Provincial universalism: the landscape of knowledge production in an era of globalization’, Current Sociology, vol. 51, no. 6, 2003, 615–23.
16 For a comprehensive overview of the history of the term ‘Islamophobia’, see Fernando Bravo López, ‘Towards a definition of Islamophobia: approximations of the early twentieth century’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 34, no. 4, 2011, 556–73; and Junaid Rana, ‘The story of Islamophobia’, Souls, vol. 9, no. 2, 2007, 148–61.
17 Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia, Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All (London: Runnymede Trust 1997), 4–12.
18 Pantazis and Pemberton define the term as a ‘sub-group of the population that is singled out for state attention as being “problematic.” Specifically in terms of policing, individuals may be targeted, not necessarily as a result of suspected wrong doing, but simply because of their presumed membership to that sub-group. Race, ethnicity, religion, class, gender, language, accent, dress, political ideology or any combination of these factors may serve to delineate the sub-group.’ Christina Pantazis and Simon Pemberton, ‘From the “old” to the “new” suspect community: examining the impacts of recent UK counter-terrorist legislation’, British Journal of Criminology, vol. 49, no. 5, 2009, 646–66 (649).
19 See ibid.; and Madeline-Sophie Abbas, ‘Producing “internal suspect bodies”: divisive effects of UK counter-terrorism measures on Muslim communities in Leeds and Bradford’, British Journal of Sociology, vol. 70, no. 1, 2019, 261–82.
20 Brian Klug, ‘Islamophobia: a concept comes of age’, Ethnicities, vol. 12, no. 5, 2012, 665–81.
21 In his seminal article on Islamophobia, Fred Halliday explains that ‘anti-Muslimism’ is a better term than Islamophobia because Muslims rather than Islam are the targets of discrimination in the West. Fred Halliday, ‘“Islamophobia” reconsidered’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 22, no. 5, 1999, 892–902 (898).
22 W. B. Gallie, ‘Essentially contested concepts’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. 56, no. 1, 1956, 167–98.
23 Jocelyn Cesari, ‘Islamophobia in the West: a comparison between Europe and the United States’, in John L. Esposito and Ibrahim Kalin (eds), Islamophobia: The Challenge of Pluralism in the 21st Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2011), 21–43 (21).
24 Tariq Modood, Essays on Secularism and Multiculturalism (London: ECPR Press/ Rowman & Littlefield International 2019), Chap. 1, 34–5.
25 Ibid., Chap. 4, 76.
26 Ibid., Chap. 4, 77.
27 Ibid., Chap.1, 34.
28 See, for example, Esra Özyürek, Being German, Becoming Muslim: Race, Religion, and Conversion in the New Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2015); Mikaela H. Rogozen-Soltar, Spain Unmoored: Migration, Conversion, and the Politics of Islam (Bloomington: Indiana University Press 2017); and Amena Amer and Caroline Howarth, ‘Constructing and contesting threat: representations of white British Muslims across British national and Muslim newspapers’, European Journal of Social Psychology, vol. 48, no. 5, 2018, 614–28.
29 Cesari, ‘Islamophobia in the West’, 24.
30 Ibid.
31 Tariq Modood, ‘Introduction: the politics of multiculturalism in the new Europe’, in Tariq Modood and Pnina Werbner (eds), The Politics of Multiculturalism in the New Europe: Racism, Identity and Community (London: Zed Books 1997), 1–26 (4).
32 Rana, ‘The story of Islamophobia’, 148.
33 All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims, Islamophobia Defined: Report on the Inquiry into a Working Definition of Islamophobia/Anti-Muslim Hatred, 27 November 2018, available on squarespace.com at https://static1.squarespace.com/static/599c3d2febbd1a90cffdd8a9/t/5bfd1ea3352f531a6170ceee/1543315109493/Islamophobia+Defined.pdf (viewed 14 February 2024).
34 I list a few notable ones here: Arun Kundnani, The Muslims Are Coming! Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror (London: Verso 2014); Narzanin Massoumi, Tom Mills and David Miller (eds), What Is Islamophobia? Racism, Social Movements and the State (London: Pluto Press 2017); David Tyrer, The Politics of Islamophobia: Race, Power and Fantasy (London: Pluto Press 2013); Nathan Lean, The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Hatred of Muslims, 2nd edn (London: Pluto Press 2017); Nazia Kazi, Islamophobia, Race, and Global Politics (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield 2019); Jim Wolfreys, Republic of Islamophobia: The Rise of Respectable Racism in France (London: C. Hurst 2018); Stephen Sheehi, Islamophobia: The Ideological Campaign against Muslims (Atlanta, GA: Clarity Press 2011); and Nicole Nguyen, Suspect Communities: Anti-Muslim Racism and the Domestic War on Terror (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 2019).
35 Ibrahim Kalin, ‘Islamophobia and the limits of multiculturalism’, in Esposito and Kalin (eds), Islamophobia, 3–20 (11).
36 Erik Love, Islamophobia and Racism in America (New York: New York University Press 2017), 2.
37 Andrew Shryock, ‘Introduction: Islam as an object of fear and affection’, in Shryock (ed.), Islamophobia/Islamophilia: Beyond the Politics of Enemy and Friend (Bloomington: Indiana University Press 2010), 1–25 (2).
38 Enes Bayraklı and Farid Hafez, ‘Introduction’, in Enes Bayraklı and Farid Hafez (eds), Islamophobia in Muslim Majority Societies (London and New York: Routledge 2019), 1–4 (2).
39 Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror (New York: Pantheon 2004).
40 In the Azerbaijani context, a ‘good Azeri Muslim' is posited as one who follows ‘traditional Islam' derived from the local Azerbaijani context devoid of Islamist radicalism or fundamentalism that can challenge political power. Any Muslim who does not conform to the principles of ‘traditional Islam' as constructed and construed by the Azerbaijani state is deemed a non–traditional, ‘bad Azeri Muslim’ influenced by foreign forces and thereby securitized or subjected to state surveillance and discrimination. See Sofie Bedford, Ceyhun Mahmudlu and Shamkhal Abilov, ‘Protecting nation, state and government: “traditional Islam” in Azerbaijan’, Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 73, no. 4, 2021, 691–712 (698–9). Islamophobia in this context, it seems to me, is embedded in the securitization of any Muslim whose version of Islam―non–traditional Islam―is incongruous with the traditional Islam dictated by the state.
41 See Shryock, ‘Introduction’, 9–10.
42 W. E. B. Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept, ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press 2007).
43 Steve Garner and Saher Selod, ‘The racialization of Muslims: empirical studies of Islamophobia’, Critical Sociology, vol. 41, no. 1, 2015, 9–19 (7).
44 For an insight into the meaning of―and distinction between―interculturalism and multiculturalism, see Tariq Modood and Nasar Meer, ‘Interculturalism, multiculturalism or both?’, Political Insight, vol. 3, no. 1, 2012, 30–3.
45 Garner and Selod, ‘The racialization of Muslims’, 12.
46 Tariq Modood, ‘Islamophobia and normative sociology’, Journal of the British Academy, vol. 8, 2020, 29–49 (‘Note on the author’, 29).
47 Frantz Fanon, Toward the African Revolution: Political Essays, trans. from the French by Haakon Chevalier (New York: Grove Press 1967), 33.
48 Ibid., 32.
49 See Étienne Balibar, ‘Is there a “neo-racism”?’, trans. from the French by Chris Turner, in Étienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities (London and New York: Verso 1991), 17–28 (26).
50 Ali Rattansi, Racism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press 2007), 100–1.
51 Daniel Egiegba Agbiboa, ‘Ethno-religious conflicts and the elusive quest for national identity in Nigeria’, Journal of Black Studies, vol. 44, no. 1, 2013, 3–30 (10).
52 Peter Lewis, Identity, Institutions and Democracy in Nigeria, Afrobarometer Working Paper no. 68 (Cape Town: Institute for Democracy in South Africa/ Accra: Ghana Centre for Democratic Development/ East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University 2007), 5.
53 Michael Nwankpa, ‘The north–south divide: Nigerian discourses on Boko Haram, the Fulani, and Islamization’ (commentary), 26 October 2021, available on the Hudson Institute website at www.hudson.org/national-security-defense/the-north-south-divide-nigerian-discourses-on-boko-haram-the-fulani-and-islamization (viewed 15 February 2024).
54 See Frank L. Lambrecht, ‘The pastoral nomads of Nigeria’, Expedition Magazine, vol. 18, no. 3, 1976, 26–31 (26–7).
55 Mário Vicente, Edita Priehodová, Issa Diallo, Eliška Podgorná, Estella S. Poloni, Viktor Černý and Carina M. Schlebusch, ‘Population history and genetic adaptation of the Fulani nomads: inferences from genome-wide data and the lactase persistence trait’, BMC Genomics (online), vol. 20, no. 915, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-019-6296-7.
56 Johannes Harnischfeger, ‘Islamisation and ethnic conversion in Nigeria’, Anthropos, vol. 101, no. 1, 2006, 37–53 (41).
57 A much better term, I think, is ‘Sokoto jihad’ because the ethnic colouration of ‘Fulani jihad’ presupposes that it was specifically waged by the Fulani against other ethnicities which is one of the sources of anti-Fulani sentiments in Nigeria. This is wrong not least because of the diversity of ethnic membership in the jihad. See Marilyn Robinson Waldman, ‘The Fulani Jihād: a reassessment’, Journal of African History, vol. 6, no. 3, 1965, 333–55 (355).
58 Olufemi Vaughan, Religion and the Making of Nigeria (Durham, NC: Duke University Press 2016), 1.
59 Harnischfeger, ‘Islamisation and ethnic conversion in Nigeria’. For more on slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate, see Paul E. Lovejoy, ‘Murgu: the wages of slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate’, Slavery & Abolition, vol. 14, no. 1, 1993, 168–85; Mohammed Bashir Salau, Plantation Slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate: A Historical and Comparative Study (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press 2018); Sean Stilwell, ‘Power, honour and shame: the ideology of royal slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate’, Africa, vol. 70, no. 3, 2000, 394–421.
60 This point has been highlighted―though in a cursory manner―by Adam Higazi: ‘Some political narratives of Plateau indigenes claim that there is an Islamic agenda to dominate Plateau State and that Muslims instigated violence on the Jos Plateau in their struggle for power. This viewpoint has also been framed historically, arguing that the current conflicts are a continuation of the nineteenth century jihad that swept across northern Nigeria, establishing the Sokoto Caliphate, but which the people of the high Plateau, aided by the rugged terrain and their decentralised pattern of social organisation, successfully resisted. [. . .] The politicisation of religion in Plateau State draws on the view that it is under attack because it is an island of resistance to Muslim domination. This perspective is reinforced by the contemporary global prominence of jihadism. The Plateau narrative of the Jos conflicts appropriates global discourses from the “War on Terror” with local experiences of communal violence. The extreme violence of Boko Haram, the jihadist group originating in north-east Nigeria, has also affected the lexicon of the Plateau conflicts. Boko Haram appear to have a minimal presence in Plateau State and the conflicts around Jos pre-date Boko Haram, but such distinctions are not necessarily made in local discourse, which conflate any Muslims involved in armed conflict with Boko Haram. In this totalising narrative, all conflicts in northern Nigeria are viewed as being part of a wider jihad, not as separate disputes with locally specific roots. Even in rural areas, this political and historical context frames the way that conflicts between predominantly Christian Berom farmers and Muslim Fulani pastoralists are expressed.’ Adam Higazi, ‘Farmer–pastoralist conflicts on the Jos Plateau, central Nigeria: security responses of local vigilantes and the Nigerian state’, Conflict, Security & Development, vol. 16, no. 4, 2016, 365–85 (370–71).
61 Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1996).
62 Quoted in Harnischfeger, ‘Islamisation and ethnic conversion in Nigeria’, 43.
63 There were other ideological and political reasons for amalgamating the Northern Nigeria Protectorate and the Southern Nigeria Protectorate even though the economic rationale trumped other reasons. See Richard Bourne, Nigeria: A New History of a Turbulent Century (London: Zed Books 2015), 10–12.
64 See Rabiat Akande, ‘Secularizing Islam: the colonial encounter and the making of a British Islamic criminal law in northern Nigeria, 1903–58’, Law and History Review, vol. 38, no. 2, 2020, 459–93; Jonathan Reynolds, ‘Good and bad Muslims: Islam and indirect rule in northern Nigeria’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 34, no. 3, 2001, 601–18.
65 Akande, ‘Secularizing Islam’, 461.
66 Because of the religious/cultural integration between the Fulani and the Hausa in northern Nigeria, both groups are considered together as Hausa-Fulani by other ethnoreligious groups in Nigeria. This is obviously a stereotype. Although the Hausa and Fulani are, predominantly, Muslim―and this is what indeed makes both ethnicities similar in the eyes of other ethnicities in Nigeria―they are distinct groups with distinct cultures.
67 Andrew E. Barnes, ‘The Middle Belt Movement and the formation of Christian consciousness in colonial northern Nigeria’, Church History, vol. 76, no. 3, 2007, 591–610.
68 Eghosa E. Osaghae, ‘Explaining the changing patterns of ethnic politics in Nigeria’, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, vol. 9, no. 3, 2003, 54–73 (58).
69 Wale Adebanwi, ‘Terror, territoriality and the struggle for indigeneity and citizenship in northern Nigeria’, Citizenship Studies, vol. 13, no. 4, 2009, 349–63 (350).
70 Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster 1996).
71 Femi Fani-Kayode, ‘The Fulanisation of Nigeria and the perfidy of the British (part 2)’, Vanguard (online), 20 February 2018, available at www.vanguardngr.com/2018/02/giving-colonies-settlements-fulani-guise-land-grazing-dangerous (viewed 15 February 2024).
72 Editorial, ‘5 things to know about violence in Nigeria’s Middle Belt’, World Watch Monitor (online), 11 September 2017, available at www.worldwatchmonitor.org/2017/09/5-things-to-know-about-the-violence-in-nigerias-middle-belt (viewed 15 February 2024).
73 Sam Adesua, ‘Fulani herdsmen and the rest of us’, Nigerian Tribune (online), 14 January 2018, available at https://tribuneonlineng.com/fulani-herdsmen-rest-us (viewed 15 February 2024).
74 Ibid.
75 Arne Mulders, quoted in ‘Who are the Fulani?’, World Watch Monitor (online), available at www.worldwatchmonitor.org/who-are-the-fulani (viewed 15 February 2024).
76 Yinka Odumakin, ‘The true meaning of Ruga’, Vanguard (online), 2 July 2019, available at www.vanguardngr.com/2019/07/the-true-meaning-of-ruga (viewed 15 February 2024).
77 Gbonka Ebiri, ‘Biafra: Why do you think they stopped history lessons in schools?’, Biafra Times, 22 January 2018, available at www.thebiafratimes.co/2018/01/why-do-you-think-they-stopped-history.html (viewed 16 Februrary 2024).
78 Godwin Aliuna, ‘IPOB vows to resist President Buhari’s alleged plan to establish Ruga, Islamization of southeast region’, Daily Post (online), 29 July 2019, available at https://dailypost.ng/2019/07/29/ipob-vows-resist-president-buharis-alleged-plan-establish-ruga-islamization-southeast-region (viewed 16 February 2024).
79 Ameh A. Ejeh, ‘RUGA vs our traditional chiefs and leaders’, The Sun (online), 4 July 2019, available at https://sunnewsonline.com/ruga-vs-our-traditional-chiefs-and-leaders (viewed 16 February 2024).
80 Editorial, ‘Southern governors’ Asaba Declaration’, Daily Trust (online), 16 May 2021, available at https://dailytrust.com/southern-governors-asaba-declaration/ (viewed 16 February 2024).
81 Nwankpa, ‘The north–south divide’.
82 See Promise Frank Ejiofor, ‘“Fulanis are foreign terrorists”: the social construction of a suspect community in the Sahel’, Critical Studies on Terrorism, vol. 15, no. 2, 2022, 333–55.
83 Nwankpa, ‘The north–south divide’.
84 Malam Badamasi Muhammad, quoted in Abbas Dalibi, ‘IPOB: food traders boycott s/east as northerners flee’, Daily Trust (online), 16 December 2022, available at https://dailytrust.com/ipob-food-traders-boycott-s-east-as-northerners-flee (viewed 16 February 2024).
85 Ardo Saidu Baso interview with El-Ameen Ibrahim, ‘Most south-east Fulani settlements wiped out—leader’, Punch (online), 20 January 2023, available at https://punchng.com/most-south-east-fulani-settlements-wiped-out-leader (viewed 16 February 2024).
86 See Tarela Juliet Ike, ‘“Its’ [sic] like being a Christian is tantamount to victimisation”: a qualitative study of Christian experiences and perceptions of insecurity and terrorism in Nigeria’, Cogent Social Sciences (online), vol. 8, no. 1, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2022.2071032.
87 Kwame Anthony Appiah, As If: Idealization and Ideals (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2017).
88 Robert W. Cox, ‘Social forces, states and world orders: beyond international relations theory’, Millennium, vol. 10, no. 2, 1981, 126–55 (128).
89 See David Sneath, ‘Tribe’ [1 September 2016[, in The Open Encyclopedia of Anthropology, ed. Felix Stein, available at www.anthroencyclopedia.com/entry/tribe (viewed 16 February 2024).
90 See Amy Chua, ‘Tribal world: group identity is all’, Foreign Affairs (online), 14 June 2018, available at www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2018-06-14/tribal-world (viewed 30 November 2023).
91 George Makari, Of Fear and Strangers: A History of Xenophobia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press 2021), 239–45.
92 Dominic Packer and Jay Van Bavel, ‘The myth of tribalism’, The Atlantic (online), 3 January 2022, available at www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/tribalism-myth-group-solidarity-prejudice-conflict/621008 (viewed 16 February 2024).
93 The Robbers Cave Experiment is a study on intergroup conflict and cooperation conducted in the 1950s by the Turkish-American social psychologist Muzafer Sherif and his research team. The study separated 22 eleven-year-old boys of roughly similar backgrounds―middle-class, white, Protestant, with two-parent backgrounds―into two groups. The study demonstrates that the introduction of competitive tasks for the two groups of boys engendered identities and conflicts while cooperative tasks reduced intergroup hostilities. As Sherif and his team put it: ‘When the groups competed for goals that could be attained by only one group, to the dismay and disappointment of the other, hostile deeds and unflattering labels developed in relation to the outgroup. In time, derogatory stereotypes and negative attitudes towards the outgroup crystallized. These conclusions are based on observations made independently by observers of both groups and other staff members. Sociometric indices pointed to the overwhelming preponderance of ingroup members as friendship choices. Experimental assessment of intergroup attitudes showed unmistakable attribution of derogatory stereotypes to the villainous outgroup and of favorable qualities to the ingroup. Laboratory-type judgments of performance showed the tendency to overestimate the performance attributed to fellow group members and to minimize the performance of members of the outgroup.' See Muzafer Sherif, O. J. Harvey, B. Jack White, William R. Hood and Carolyn W. Sherif, The Robbers Cave Experiment: Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press 1988), 210. The Robbers Cave Experiment―which has incontrovertibly made a seminal contribution to the social sciences―provides empirical evidence that intergroup conflicts emanate from competition for limited resources. Additionally, the experiment showed that ‘identity allegiances can be easily conjured into being; and that (if we needed reminding) the Other may not be very other at all. We also know that identity as a social form is no less powerful for all that.’ See Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Ethics of Identity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2005), 64.
94 See Andrea Malji and Syed Tahseen Raza, ‘The securitization of love jihad’, Religions (online), vol. 12, no. 12, 2021, https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12121074.
95 Melani McAlister, ‘Islamophobia is not racism’ (blog), Contending Modernities, 2 October 2018, available at https://contendingmodernities.nd.edu/theorizing-modernities/islamophobia-racism (viewed 19 February 2024).
96 Eric R. Wolf, Europe and the People without History (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press 1997).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Promise Frank Ejiofor
Promise Frank Ejiofor is a Ph.D. candidate in Development Studies at the University of Cambridge, where he is a Gates Cambridge Scholar. He holds an M.Phil. in Social Anthropology from Trinity College, Cambridge, and an M.A. in Political Science from the Central European University in Vienna. His research interests lie at the intersection of nationalism, citizenship, ethnic politics and international security with a focus on Africa. His articles have been published in Ethnopolitics, Critical Studies on Terrorism, African Security, Conflict, Security and Development, The RUSI Journal, Nationalities Papers and Peace Review among others. He is a member of the editorial board of Ethnopolitics. Email: [email protected]