Social and Cultural Geography (2008).
From Oral Histories to Visual Narratives:
Re-presenting the Post-September 11 Experiences of the
Muslim Women in the United States
Mei-Po Kwan
Abstract:
Since the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and
the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. on September 11, 2001, Muslims or
Muslim-looking people in the United States have experienced a significant
increase in hostility and hate violence. The anti-Muslim hate crimes
have affected the lives of these people of color in significant ways.
In this article I seek to recover part of the post-September 11
experiences of American Muslims that were obfuscated by the dominant
anti-Muslim master narrative, which conflated the Islamic faith with
terrorism and constructed all Muslims as dangerous anti-American outsiders.
I explore a way of telling stories about these experiences using the
expressive power of geospatial technologies. Using the experiences of
a Muslim woman in Columbus (Ohio, U.S.) as an example, I describe how
the technological spaces afforded by geographical information systems
(GIS) may be used to illuminate the impact of the fear of anti-Muslim
hate violence on the daily lives of Muslim women and to help articulate
their emotional geographies in the post-September 11 period.
Key Words: anti-Muslim hate violence, fear,
geospatial technologies, GIS, September 11.
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