Unwanted Identities: The ‘Religion Line’ and Global Islamophobia

The article discusses why Islamophobia constitutes a major racist discourse today and illustrates how we can make sense of this global relevance of Islamophobia. The author explains the centrality of the ‘religion line’ in the current global world system by drawing on the post-Cold War era. Through a decolonial reading of Islamophobia, three empirical cases are chosen to discuss differences and commonalities between various forms of Islamophobia in the Xingjiang/China, Egypt, and the USA exploring the effects of this global phenomenon on the discursive construction of identities, citizenship rights, and governance.