Periodic Reporting for period 2 - EmbRace (The Embodiment of Racialization: Running Muslim Women and the Sense of Non-Belonging)
Période du rapport: 2023-08-15 au 2024-08-14
Muslims are the focus of political anxieties in Europe and the US. Over the last decade, numerous studies have documented the racialization of Muslims, and the impact of those discourses on those identified as such. Yet the embodied and sensorial dimension of the racialization of Muslims remains largely under-theorized. EmbRace posits that to better understand, and by extension tackle, the effects of (racial) discrimination in everyday life, we need not only to attend to statistics of reported racism or narrated accounts of racism, but also to the sensorial and bodily experience of it. This project took recreational running as a fruitful angle to consider the embodiment of race. The leisurely activity of running enabled an investigation of the effects of racialization on the relation to one’s own body, environment, and to other people. The research design utilized an ethnographic approach. To reveal the embodiment of social hierarchies in social interactions among Muslim recreational athletes, this project had two main objectives: 1) Conceptualize how dispositions of non-belonging shape outdoor activities such as running and vice versa, by analysing movement and narratives of movement (conceptual/empirical goal) and 2) To examine and theorize the processes through which the multisensory dimensions of racialization become embodied (theoretical goal). A knowledge transfer between the researcher, Leiden University (The Netherlands) and University of California, Berkeley (USA), this project contributed to the theorization of embodied senses of non-belonging.
During two semesters at Berkeley in the outgoing phase, I have received ongoing training through seminars, workshops, reading groups, courses (such as Wittgenstein and Anthropology, Religion and Anthropology), and one-on-one learning from Berkeley's experts in Anthropology. Existing data on Muslim Runners has been analyzed and new data on running activists has been gathered and partially analyzed. I anticipated to conduct three days a week of fieldwork in months 6 to 9 I to conduct interviews with 20 activists and protagonists in the diversity in outdoor/running movement in the San Francisco Bay Area (Berkeley, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose). I have achieved this goal and feel I have a good grip on how social running clubs in SF Bay Area are constituted and what we can learn from them. What is more, I also joined a one particular running club and conducted fieldwork with them, 2 days a week for 7 months. I immediately applied skills acquired at Berkeley to analyse already gathered empirical data and develop novel theoretical and methodological framework on the sensorial embodiment of racialization and disseminate results to academic audiences. I gave a research seminar at UC Berkeley’s Anthropology department on 14 April 2023, and I delivered three instead of two conference presentations.
In the return phase at Leiden University, I focused on further analyzing the collected data and writing up the research. This has resulted in presentations at multiple disciplinary and interdisciplinary conferences, but also invited lectures and interviews. I have developed a theoretical framework on the sensorial embodiment of racialization, and together with a group of international colleagues further developed the concept of sensory ecologies
In the return phase at Leiden University, I focused on further analyzing the collected data and writing up the research. This has resulted in presentations at multiple disciplinary and interdisciplinary conferences, but also invited lectures and interviews. I have developed a theoretical framework on the sensorial embodiment of racialization, and together with a group of international colleagues further developed the concept of sensory ecologies
EmbRace aimed to fill a knowledge gap in the fields of sport studies and studies of racialization and has succeeded to do so. First of all, the fieldwork has resulted in unprecedented empirical data on Muslim runners and recreational running clubs in both the Netherlands and the US. Secondly, the analysis and process of theorization has resulted in a framework on sensorial embodiment of racialization, which proves to be a helpful to analyze everyday racism on a sensorial level. Next to multiple conference presentations at both disciplinary anthropology conferences and interdisciplinary conferences, invited lectures and media interviews, this has resulted in one peer-reviewed publication, one article currently under review and a full-length monograph in development. These two results have resulted in a book proposal for a US American university press. In the next two years, the research results will be exploited to finalize and publish the manuscript in 2026.
Thirdly, this project resulted in the development of the concept ‘sensory ecologies’, together with three international colleagues. This framework will potentially reimagine the way in which people, movement and environments connect. Together with these three colleagues, I am co-writing a book manuscript and book proposal on this topic. After a fruitful conversation with one of the editors, this book will be submitted to a US American university press by the end of 2024 with an anticipated publication date of late 2025 or early 2026.
The theoretical frameworks developed in this project will be further taken up in an ERC Starting Grant project. The proposal for this has been written in the return phase of this project and has now been awarded.
Thirdly, this project resulted in the development of the concept ‘sensory ecologies’, together with three international colleagues. This framework will potentially reimagine the way in which people, movement and environments connect. Together with these three colleagues, I am co-writing a book manuscript and book proposal on this topic. After a fruitful conversation with one of the editors, this book will be submitted to a US American university press by the end of 2024 with an anticipated publication date of late 2025 or early 2026.
The theoretical frameworks developed in this project will be further taken up in an ERC Starting Grant project. The proposal for this has been written in the return phase of this project and has now been awarded.