Islamophobia: Topic Identification Worksheet
1. What topic are you selecting? Why are you choosing this topic?
-The topic I am selecting is Islamophobia and racism. I am choosing this topic because I truly believe the root cause of Islamophobia is indeed racism.
2. Do some basic library research on this topic. Check out anthrosource! Do a search in the Mardigian library’s offerings. Write down three of the article titles that seem relevant and download them articles to your computer. Note these articles may be in the fields of history, anthropology, or sociology, but try to at least find one article that is squarely in an anthropology journal.
a. Making Anthropology Matter in the Heyday of Islamophobia and the ‘Refugee Crisis’: The Case of Poland-Michał Buchowski
b. Islamophobia- Miriam F. Elman
c. Online Islamophobia and the politics of fear: manufacturing the green scare
Mattias Ekman
4. Given what you know about your topic, thus far, why is it important or significant? Why should we care about it?
– I believe it is important because in order to understand how to help “cure” Islamophobia we must really understand what it is and how to cure it.
5. Go ahead, be daring: brainstorm 2 or 3 possible thesis statements. (Hypotheses about your topic in argument form). This is not set in stone. Rather it is a chance to hazard a guess. Remember, your thesis statement should be in the form of an argument and should be refutable.
· Islamophobia, is it really a phobia? Islamophobia is the purest form of racism. Although Islamophobia means “fear” of Islam, it is truly associated with hate, or racism.
· Islamophobia has always been known to be the fear of Islam, but is it really that, or is it just another form of racism, hidden behind a word. I believe it is just plain old racism.