About the project
Project Genesis:
In 2015, Grinnell College professor Caleb Elfenbein started the Mapping Islamophobia Project. The project, which is public-facing, systematically gathers sourced data on Islamophobic incidents and Muslim American efforts to combat it. We start with the present day and work our way back to 2001. We in turn, present the data in the form of maps, which visualize the trends overtime and organize it in multiple ways, such as gender and event type. Because every event or incident growing out of Islamophobic attitudes whether political speech or physical assault creates conditions inimical to free and voluntary participation in public life, the Mapping Islamophobia dataset includes a wide range of incidents and events. To uncover the complete impact of Islamophobia on Muslim Americans, we investigate how the exposure of public hate impacts the abilities of Muslim American individuals to freely and voluntarily participate in public life. How have they individually and collectively been responding the rise of Islamophobic incidents? To address this crucial question, the main site also includes data on Muslim American participation in public life. We gather information about a wide range of activities, such as community outreach activities, interfaith work, political outreach, and political activities. It is only when we juxtapose the data on Islamophobia and the nature of American Muslim participation in public life, that we begin to see the significant connection between the two.
About the site:
The site utilizes data from the Mapping Islamophobia Project, which documents both Islamophobic incidents that take place in the United States and the myriad ways Muslim Americans respond to them to highlight the impact of Islamophobia on Muslim Americans. Outreach efforts of Muslim American come in many forms, such open mosque houses, nation-wide conventions, interfaith dialogues, dinner parties, and “Ask a Muslim” events. They are organized by large Islamic organizations, local mosques, college students, and individual families. Hence, the site takes a micro-look at the data and focuses on particular stories from the dataset that illuminate the work of Muslim Americans. Showcasing the work of those who volunteer their time and resources to engage in humanizing efforts allows us to highlight the immense burden on Muslim Americans to exonerate themselves and their communities from public suspicion.
Method:
This site engages with one of the datasets from the Mapping Islamophobia Project—the Humanizing Public Life dataset—which have high editorial standards. Each entry contains the source from which the information came. The Humanizing Public Life dataset, for instance, uses reports from newspapers with clear editorial oversight, using searchable newspaper databases, such as US Newstream or via news alerts from civil rights organizations and Google. To supplement the dataset, the project also draws from field work I conducted in the summer of 2018, where I outreach events, talked with attendees, and conducted in-depth interviews with the speakers.
