Sahar Ghumkhor
Biographic Data
| ID | 3648940 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sahar Ghumkhor |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sahar |
| FAMILY NAME | Ghumkhor |
| SIGNATURE | GHUMKHOR S |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Melbourne |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7838-3086 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 7 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Conversion as Transgression? Islamophilia and/in the Muslim Manosphere
This article profiles and examines the phenomenon of Islamophilia – the admiration of Islam, which has emerged in the contemporary far right and its manosphere elements. We map this contemporary Islamophilia in its longer history of Western modes of carnivalesque transgression and orientalism. We show that the history of casting Islam as other and transgressive (sexually perverse, treatment of others) is repurposed today by the far right to both …
Muslims in the Manosphere
In the past ten years, there has been incitation to a specific type of discourse.It is a discourse of crisis where grievance, resentment, and a festering anger are the strongest currency.What kind of subject is being called on to speak of a crisis?In our current times, Islam and Muslimness are not too far from various proclamations of crises -those of borders, values, and cultural extinction.Appeals to national security have turned to the confess…
Access to justice – structural violence and a community call to rethink knowledge and ways of working
Between 2020 and 2022, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Melbourne, Australia was known as the most locked-down city in the world. Communities experienced rolling and extended lockdowns differently, impacting access to various resources, including access to justice . This article presents the key findings of a study on the effects of the pandemic on migrant and refugee communities’ ability to access social and legal services in Melbourne which it fra…
Race still matters
The proliferation of conspiracy theories is seemingly on the rise. Among them, are many that are explicitly racist. Examples of this include Great Replacement Theory, White Genocide, QAnon, and Eurabia, which each convey the idea white people are being covertly attacked and replaced. In this article, we examine the structure of these conspiracy theories and argue that their proliferation in liberal-democratic societies is not a coincidence. Our a…
Conspiracy Theories, Racial Liberalism and Fantasies of Freedom
This article provides a reading of the Truckers’ Freedom Convoy, which emerged in response to Covid-19 related public health measures in 2022. It argues the movement invites an interrogation of the affective structures of modern liberal subjectivity. We first map the social and political configurations of the movement, highlighting its links with white supremacist conspiracy theories, such as QAnon and Great Replacement Theory. We argue these con…
Afghanistan, Racial Melancholia, and Loss That Exceeds Loss
What does it mean for mourning and racial melancholia to inhabit (and exceed) the geography of Afghanistan, structured by serial wars and serial foreign occupations? As Afghans are subjected to immense forms of loss, what forms of melancholia take hold? This article builds on the critical scholarship on racial melancholia and mourning with a focus on the decades-long (and ongoing) US war and occupation of Afghanistan and considers how to think wi…
Charleston and Christchurch and the Politics of Postracial Forgiveness
This article explores the political work of forgiveness in a secular liberal West by examining the aftermath of two white supremacist violent events: the Charleston church attack in 2015 and the Christchurch mosque attacks in 2019. The article examines how the exaltation of forgiveness over anger after such events is symptomatic of what David Theo Goldberg (2015) calls the “postracial” turn which denies the structural harm of racism and privilege…
Imagining Muslim Women in Secular Humanitarian Time
Images are important to campaigns that champion the rights of Muslim women against the gender inequalities that ostensibly inhere in Islam. The force of such images derives in part from their intended purpose to disrupt, evoke, or incite responses of compassion and solidarity. The temporal context that both produces and mandates these images, however, is also critical to their power. This article thus attempts to conceptualize and name this time,…
The Confessional Body
The Political Psychology of the Veil
To Veil the Threat of Terror”
This article explores the post-911 climate of security and the fear and paranoia the hidden face has revealed about Western vulnerability. The article contends that what underpins the preoccupation with the veiled woman is a desire to know and the anxiety of never knowing, what Jacques Lacan calls the Other’s question, the Other’s jouissance. What does the Other desire? This is a question that can never be known but belief in the law’s promise of…
The Spectacle of the Veiled Woman and the Mutilated Child
When we imagine a body we imagine it whole, but, in fact, it is always in pieces. Pieces that are imagined held together in the image of a person before the law, or pieces that break apart in the image of the person who is outside this law. The person who recognises themselves before liberal law, we contend in this paper, references the images of those who are to become before law: savages, barbarians, children, animals. These categories frame th…
The Veil and Modernity
This essay explores the sociopolitical context of veiling in Tunisia and critiques Tunisia's law against wearing the veil in state schools and government offices. It expounds how the justification for the ban has been influenced by Tunisia's colonial history, echoing a French Weltanschauung and notion of modernity. Inspired by this ‘colonial modernity’, the Tunisian elite view veiling as backward and oppressive, and the act of unveiling as a symb…
Conspiracy Theories, Racial Liberalism and Fantasies of Freedom
This article provides a reading of the Truckers’ Freedom Convoy, which emerged in response to Covid-19 related public health measures in 2022. It argues the movement invites an interrogation of the affective structures of modern liberal subjectivity. We first map the social and political configurations of the movement, highlighting its links with white supremacist conspiracy theories, such as QAnon and Great Replacement Theory. We argue these con…
The Spectacle of the Veiled Woman and the Mutilated Child
When we imagine a body we imagine it whole, but, in fact, it is always in pieces. Pieces that are imagined held together in the image of a person before the law, or pieces that break apart in the image of the person who is outside this law. The person who recognises themselves before liberal law, we contend in this paper, references the images of those who are to become before law: savages, barbarians, children, animals. These categories frame th…
To Veil the Threat of Terror”
This article explores the post-911 climate of security and the fear and paranoia the hidden face has revealed about Western vulnerability. The article contends that what underpins the preoccupation with the veiled woman is a desire to know and the anxiety of never knowing, what Jacques Lacan calls the Other’s question, the Other’s jouissance. What does the Other desire? This is a question that can never be known but belief in the law’s promise of…
The Veil and Modernity
This essay explores the sociopolitical context of veiling in Tunisia and critiques Tunisia's law against wearing the veil in state schools and government offices. It expounds how the justification for the ban has been influenced by Tunisia's colonial history, echoing a French Weltanschauung and notion of modernity. Inspired by this ‘colonial modernity’, the Tunisian elite view veiling as backward and oppressive, and the act of unveiling as a symb…
The Spectacle of the Veiled Woman and the Mutilated Child
When we imagine a body we imagine it whole, but, in fact, it is always in pieces. Pieces that are imagined held together in the image of a person before the law, or pieces that break apart in the image of the person who is outside this law. The person who recognises themselves before liberal law, we contend in this paper, references the images of those who are to become before law: savages, barbarians, children, animals. These categories frame th…
To Veil the Threat of Terror”
This article explores the post-911 climate of security and the fear and paranoia the hidden face has revealed about Western vulnerability. The article contends that what underpins the preoccupation with the veiled woman is a desire to know and the anxiety of never knowing, what Jacques Lacan calls the Other’s question, the Other’s jouissance. What does the Other desire? This is a question that can never be known but belief in the law’s promise of…
The Political Psychology of the Veil
The Confessional Body
Imagining Muslim Women in Secular Humanitarian Time
Images are important to campaigns that champion the rights of Muslim women against the gender inequalities that ostensibly inhere in Islam. The force of such images derives in part from their intended purpose to disrupt, evoke, or incite responses of compassion and solidarity. The temporal context that both produces and mandates these images, however, is also critical to their power. This article thus attempts to conceptualize and name this time,…
Charleston and Christchurch and the Politics of Postracial Forgiveness
This article explores the political work of forgiveness in a secular liberal West by examining the aftermath of two white supremacist violent events: the Charleston church attack in 2015 and the Christchurch mosque attacks in 2019. The article examines how the exaltation of forgiveness over anger after such events is symptomatic of what David Theo Goldberg (2015) calls the “postracial” turn which denies the structural harm of racism and privilege…
Afghanistan, Racial Melancholia, and Loss That Exceeds Loss
What does it mean for mourning and racial melancholia to inhabit (and exceed) the geography of Afghanistan, structured by serial wars and serial foreign occupations? As Afghans are subjected to immense forms of loss, what forms of melancholia take hold? This article builds on the critical scholarship on racial melancholia and mourning with a focus on the decades-long (and ongoing) US war and occupation of Afghanistan and considers how to think wi…
Conspiracy Theories, Racial Liberalism and Fantasies of Freedom
This article provides a reading of the Truckers’ Freedom Convoy, which emerged in response to Covid-19 related public health measures in 2022. It argues the movement invites an interrogation of the affective structures of modern liberal subjectivity. We first map the social and political configurations of the movement, highlighting its links with white supremacist conspiracy theories, such as QAnon and Great Replacement Theory. We argue these con…
Race still matters
The proliferation of conspiracy theories is seemingly on the rise. Among them, are many that are explicitly racist. Examples of this include Great Replacement Theory, White Genocide, QAnon, and Eurabia, which each convey the idea white people are being covertly attacked and replaced. In this article, we examine the structure of these conspiracy theories and argue that their proliferation in liberal-democratic societies is not a coincidence. Our a…
Conversion as Transgression? Islamophilia and/in the Muslim Manosphere
This article profiles and examines the phenomenon of Islamophilia – the admiration of Islam, which has emerged in the contemporary far right and its manosphere elements. We map this contemporary Islamophilia in its longer history of Western modes of carnivalesque transgression and orientalism. We show that the history of casting Islam as other and transgressive (sexually perverse, treatment of others) is repurposed today by the far right to both …
Muslims in the Manosphere
In the past ten years, there has been incitation to a specific type of discourse.It is a discourse of crisis where grievance, resentment, and a festering anger are the strongest currency.What kind of subject is being called on to speak of a crisis?In our current times, Islam and Muslimness are not too far from various proclamations of crises -those of borders, values, and cultural extinction.Appeals to national security have turned to the confess…
Access to justice – structural violence and a community call to rethink knowledge and ways of working
Between 2020 and 2022, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Melbourne, Australia was known as the most locked-down city in the world. Communities experienced rolling and extended lockdowns differently, impacting access to various resources, including access to justice . This article presents the key findings of a study on the effects of the pandemic on migrant and refugee communities’ ability to access social and legal services in Melbourne which it fra…
Law (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Politics (6 works) · Gender Studies (5 works) · Islamic Studies and History (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · History (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Psychology (4 works)