Syeda Masood is a Global Institute of Advanced Studies Fellow at Central European University. Her research examines processes of racialization in South and Central Asia under Western imperialism. Her research has been published in Ethnic and Racial Studies. Syeda has a Ph.D. in Sociology from Brown University. W.E.B. Du Bois and subsequent scholars have posited the global existence of the color line, but it has not been sufficiently analyzed regarding the Muslim world.
This talk seeks to address this lacuna through an analysis of the meaning of Afghan identity for highly educated Kabulis of the post 9/11 generation. Drawing upon a comprehensive fifteen-month ethnographic study conducted in Kabul between 2018 and 2020, this research contributes to the ongoing discourse on the racialization of Muslims. It sheds light on how, amidst the backdrop of occupied Afghanistan, participants constructed their national identity as inherently racialized, positioning it in opposition to whiteness and thereby reflecting the presence of the global color line in their perceptions of self and other.
Empirically, the paper illustrates that members of the urban Afghan middle class viewed their own group as militaristic and backward, contrasting this in-group with an idealized image of white subjects as humanitarian and peace-loving.
Date and time: April 24, 17.00 (Vilnius time)
The lecture will be based on the article (draft) which is available here.
Registration is necessary as only registered people will be provided with the Zoom link
See you!