UNLOCKED: Paper Work: Immigration, Islamophobia and Bureaucracy w/ Josef Burton
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
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