The unbearable anxiety of being

Ideological fantasies of British Muslims beyond the politics of security

Bibliographic Data

ID12301237
AuthorsNadya Ali (0000-0002-8681-6996, University of Sussex), Ben Whitham (0000-0001-8494-3257, De Montfort University, Leicester ,, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume49
Issue5
Pages400-417
Publication date2018-09-19
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSecurity Dialogue (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0967-0106 • E-ISSN: 1460-3640
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0967010618794050
OpenAlexW2885052562
LanguageEN
Citations received15
References cited33

A succession of media scandals and policy arguments in the UK in recent years has been integral to the construction of a so-called ‘Muslim Problem’. Media and political attention paid to Muslims in British public life, across a vast and varied range of issues, suggests a social preoccupation that exceeds the security framing the ‘War on Terror’ once imposed. In this article, we develop and apply Slavoj Žižek’s Lacanian theory of ideology to produce an original conceptual and analytic framework centred on the social functions served by, as well as the co-constitution of, anxiety and fantasy. We then apply this framework to explore three scandals relating to child sexual exploitation, halal meat and education. We show that the representations of British Muslims that these scandals entail are best understood as ideological fantasies, mobilized to suture traumatic gaps and conceal contradictions in wider social practices around such issues. We argue that the unrelenting media and political focus on myriad aspects of British Muslims’ imagined lives is symptomatic of what Žižek calls an ‘unbearable anxiety’: Islamophobic ideological fantasies conjure a ‘conceptual Muslim’ to sidestep confrontation with the Lacanian ‘Real’ – antagonistic and anxiety-inducing structures and practices underpinning British society, of which we do not speak

Constitution · Fantasy · Framing (construction · Ideology · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Gender Studies · History · Homelessness and Social Issues · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence

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