Dr Najib collected quantitative geo-referenced data in order to map the phenomenon of Islamophobia. The goal was to map where Islamophobic incidents have occurred. The two maps for Paris and London have been exposed in a media article (in two versions: one in French and one in English) in ‘The Conversation’. The mapping of anti-Muslim acts in the two capital cities highlights specific distributions showing visually the importance of the urban centre for the Parisian case and the transport axes for the London case. In France, Islamophobic acts occur in great majority in public institutions (which can draw a more centralized geography of Islamophobia), while in the UK it happens mostly in public areas and public transport (which can highlight important vertical and horizontal axes).
These two maps have also been exposed in an article entitled ‘Where does Islamophobia take place and who is involved? Reflection from Paris and London’ submitted by Dr Najib and Professor Hopkins to a special issue of Social and Cultural Geography on ‘Geographies of Islamophobia’ co-edited by Dr Kawtar Najib and Dr Carmen Teeple Hopkins. This special issue is based on organised sessions at the Association of American Geographers 2017 in Boston, and brings together a range of international contributors (established scholars as well as early career researchers) whose research engages with Islamophobia in different contexts (e.g. Europe, United States, and Australia).
Second, Dr Najib has collected qualitative data on spatial and behavioural practices and strategies adopted by victims of Islamophobia. Dr Najib conducted 33 interviews with French victims present in the CCIF database, and 27 interviews with British victims present in the MEND database. These interviews allowed us to collect important data on how victims use spaces, how they avoid certain places, how they change or conceal their religious habits and practices in certain places. Dr Najib and Professor Hopkins have written an article entitled ‘Veiled Muslim women’s spatial and behavioural strategies in response to Islamophobia in Paris’ which presents the qualitative data stemming from the interviews conducted in Paris. This article is a result of an oral presentation that Dr Najib gave the 1st September 2017 at the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers session on “Muslim Women’s Geography”. The organizers asked Dr Najib to participate in their special issue on “Negotiating Muslimness” for Political Geography.
As for the results of qualitative data in Paris and London, the first findings were presented in a conference hold at Berkeley University in April 2018, and Dr Najib and Professor Hopkins plan to write various articles based on the set of 60 interviews conducted in Paris and London.
Finally, Dr Najib has submitted a single-authored article showing the link between spaces of Islamophobia and spaces of inequality in Paris for Population, Space and Place. The goal of this article is to observe whether the real geography of Islamophobia and the perceived geography of Islamophobia match or contrast. For the Parisian case, it is interesting to note how real and perceived geographies of Islamophobia match. Indeed, the quantitative data of the CCIF show that Central Paris is the area most affected by Islamophobic acts within the Greater Paris region, and the qualitative data show that veiled Muslim women in Paris do not feel comfortable in Paris intra-muros. Indeed, the majority of them feels “out of place” in the Parisian centre.
