UNLOCKED: Paper Work: Immigration, Islamophobia and Bureaucracy w/ Josef Burton
Summary
Host Gregory Foley and former diplomat Joseph Burton discuss how bureaucratic institutions operationalize violence, specifically through the lens of Islamophobia. They analyze the "Muslim Ban" and argue that Islamophobia functions less as a cultural prejudice and more as a set of institutional practices that produce the figure of the "Muslim" for state management. The conversation traces the roots of these dynamics to post-decolonization European anxieties and the post-Cold War US security state, highlighting how administrative procedures legitimize systemic exclusion and violence.
Topics discussed
Introduction: Joseph Burton and the economy of violence
Joseph's background: From Pacific Northwest to the State Department
Entering the foreign service: Scholarships and elite circles
The 'good Muslim' trope and the danger of cultural essentialism
Culture talk, orientalism, and projections of sexual depravity
Islamophobia as zombie anti-communism and colonial hangovers
The institutional construction of terrorism and immigration law
Institutional hypervisibility and the myth of Sharia law threats
Small-town paranoia and the certainty vs. doubt dialectic
Post-9/11 bureaucracy: Visa officers and biometric surveillance
The helplessness of functionaries and the 'Shah Rukh Khan' problem
Birtherism, bodily panic, and the Trump campaign's rhetoric
Implementing the Muslim Ban: Waivers, screening, and dissent
Administrative processing as refusal and bureaucratic friction
The Biden era, Gaza, and the legacy of the security state
Conclusion: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and the apparatus of enmity
Listen ad-free on Castria