University of California Press Paperback English
Black Muslim Refugee
Militarism, Policing, and Somali American Resistance to State Violence
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This multisited project, the first of its kind, exposes the links between US military violence abroad and police brutality at home through a profound exploration of Somali refugee lives. Black Muslim Refugee traces the globe-spanning journeys of these refugees, from civil warera Somalia to the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya to their eventual arrival in San Diego, and Maxamed Abumaye analyzes their experiences through the dual lenses of anti-Blackness and Islamophobia. He situates their displacement within the larger context of East Africa's colonial history, as well as the policy consequences of the American-backed war on terror and war on drugs. Throughout, Abumaye's centering of Somali subjectivity underlines this community's critical and creative capacity to defy the mechanisms that seek to "manage" and ultimately control them.
This multisited project, the first of its kind, exposes the links between US military violence abroad and police brutality at home through a profound exploration of Somali refugee lives. Black Muslim Refugee traces the globe-spanning journeys of these refugees, from civil warera Somalia to the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya to their eventual arrival in San Diego, and Maxamed Abumaye analyzes their experiences through the dual lenses of anti-Blackness and Islamophobia. He situates their displacement within the larger context of East Africa's colonial history, as well as the policy consequences of the American-backed war on terror and war on drugs. Throughout, Abumaye's centering of Somali subjectivity underlines this community's critical and creative capacity to defy the mechanisms that seek to "manage" and ultimately control them.