'The Politics of Anti-Islamophobia' book in conversation with Dr Sara Cheikh

VU HASS group and Moondani Balluk x Community, Identity, & Displacement Research Network collaborative are hosting an in-person gatehring on 'The Politics of Anti-Islamophobia' book in conversation with Dr Sara Cheikh

Date: 9th Nov 2026

Time: 3.00 pm - 4.00 pm (AEDT)

Location: Building G - Room G105, Lizzie & Uncle Jack Charles' Room, Moondani Balluk. Victoria University - Footscray Park Campus* 

*Ticket/registrations are required for room capacity

The Politics of Anti-Islamophobia in Australia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025), Sara studies how Muslim community organisations in Australia understood and responded to Islamophobia between 2014 and 2018. In those years ISIS rose, anti-Muslim rhetoric surged in Australian politics, and the period ended with the Christchurch terrorist attack. She shows how these organisations resisted Islamophobia through civic, discursive and political strategies, and argues that their agency was both pragmatic and transformative as they worked within and against the limits of Australian politics. The book closes with a call for new forms of Muslim grassroots organising and political engagement, different from those that came before, in response to the Australian government's complicity in the genocide in Gaza since 2023.

Presented by:

Dr Sara Cheikh Husain is a critical sociologist who researches Islamophobia, Muslim political agency and the governance of Muslims in Australia. She completed her PhD at Deakin University's Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation and has taught and researched at Deakin, Monash and the University of Melbourne. She sits on the executive of the Australian Association of Islamic and Muslim Studies (AAIMS), has advised the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), and represented Australia at countering Islamophobia conference in 2024 in Baku.