Neoliberalism and Islamophobia

Reviewed by: Maryam Tarik Ismail Khalel – Leicester, UK

Published by: Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, 137pp. ISBN: 9783031181146.

Islamophobia is a prominent topic in contemporary discourse, with many striving to interpret, define or associate it with existing concepts, such as racism. Neoliberalism has been interlinked with Islamophobia to produce an understanding of power and control within different components of society. Zainab Mourad, an Academic in the Sociology of Education, offers an extensive analysis of the experiences of minority Muslim Australian students in relation to exposure to Islamophobia and neoliberalism at different levels of education.

The introductory chapter establishes the context of the book by addressing Islamophobic political rhetoric and the marginalisation of Muslims in the West. A global perspective is introduced by Mourad aiming to investigate the origins of Islamophobia, and to dissect its relationship with neoliberalism through a focus on macro-, meso- and micro-levels of society.