The Role of Ethnic Discrimination in Radicalization for Moroccan Immigrants in France

An increase in major terrorist events in Europe over the past decade has shifted the reality for Muslims in Western Europe–and not for the better. The 2015 Paris attacks and the 2016 Nice truck attack have refocused attention on people’s origins as a place of blame rather than examining the internal factors that may have contributed to their individual radical actions. Moroccans, one of the largest immigrant populations in Western Europe, are consequently one of the largest Arab populations to have been affected by the policy and attitude changes in response to these events. The French secularist policy, laïcité, has long faced criticism for its prejudices against Muslim populations. Through new research, I show the presence of a potential connection between ethnic discrimination and radicalization through the application of the reactive ethnicity theory as a theoretical framework. The understanding of collective ethnic identity formations through the lens of various psychologists such as Jean Phinney, Ruben Rumbaut, and Henri Tajfel allow for a deeper comprehension of the importance of identity to examine the reasoning behind certain behaviors, such as the inherent favoritism of people within same groupings. Understanding how people come to view themselves opens a possible explanation for why they behave the way they do. Identity is very entwined with behavioral actions (Simons 2021) The pertinence of identity in relation to radicalism is explained by examining the process of radicalization through research experts such as psychologist Bertjan Doosje et al., and political scientist Anja Dalgaard-Nielsen. However, these studies were independent of each other and did not attempt to connect the relationship of ethnic identity and radicalism through the lens of reactive ethnic identity. The research conducted for this thesis strongly suggests that a discriminatory environment, such as that facilitated by the laïcité, results in an ethnic identity deemed ‘reactive ethnicity’. Along with examining reactive ethnicity as a concept, this piece delves into the process of radicalization in Europe by examining the Moroccan immigrant population in discriminatory contexts in order to facilitate a deeper understanding of the complexities that motivate radicalis

Are Images Global?

This text discusses questions of definition and of translation, both textual and cultural, in relation to local and global understandings of art made in the Middle East. In so doing, it explores tensions and contradictions that currently constrain research in this area

University Scholars Day

Presentation for the 2008 University Scholars Day at the University of North Texas discussing research on the National Geographic's representation of women in Islam

The Open Modern Art Collection of Iraq: Web tools for Documenting, Sharing and Enriching Iraqi Artistic Expressions

The Open Modern Art Collection of Iraq (OMACI) project will prototype a robust, participatory content-management system to trace, share and enable community enrichment of the modern art heritage of Iraq. The project represents a collaborative effort of the University of North Texas, the Alexandria Archive Institute, and the School of Information at UC Berkeley. OMACI will create a virtual gallery with images of works of art, many of them now lost, from the Iraqi Museum of Modern Art in Baghdad, linked to publications, exhibition catalogs, and personal documentation. Technologies deployed in this project focus on ease of use and localization, extensive and inclusive documentation, community contribution, and syndication of content elsewhere on the web. The success of the system lies in its ability to reach a wide and participatory audience across the globe, offering users the ability to document, discuss, explore, and enrich Iraqi artistic expressions and experiences

Modern Art in the Arab World

"Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents offers an unprecedented resource for the study of modernism: a compendium of critical art writings by twentieth-century Arab intellectuals and artists. The selection of texts—many of which appear here for the first time in English—includes manifestos, essays, transcripts of roundtable discussions, diary entries, exhibition guest-book comments, letters, and more. Traversing empires and nation-states, diasporas and speculative cultural and political federations, these documents bring light to the global formation of modernism, through debates on originality, public space, spiritualism and art, postcolonial exhibition politics, and Arab nationalism, among many other topics." -- Publisher's website