Islamophobia – What’s in a Name? Analysing the Discourses About Islam and Muslims Of The Far-Right Stop The Islamisation of Norway (SIAN).

Sindre Bangstad presents findings from his Research on SIAN.

The far-right organisation Stopp Islamiseringen av Norge (SIAN) or Stop The Islamisation of Norway was established in 2008. Among its most central activists are former members of SIAN’s pre-cursor FOMI (Forum Mot Islamisering), established in 2004.

It rose to public attention in Norway after Anders Behring Breivik’s terrorist attacks of July 22 2011, after media revelations to the effect that SIAN members appeared to have had extensive contact with Behring Breivik online in the years preceding the terrorist attacks, and after SIAN’s then chairperson Arne Tumyr made it clear that he and his organisation endorsed Behring Breivik’s views, whilst condemning his actions . As a membership organisation, it has had limited appeal in terms of attracting members, and remains a fringe organisation with limited traction in the political mainstream in Norway.

But SIAN has arguably been more successful in disseminating Islamophobic ideas, rhetoric and sentiments in Norway. This presentation is based on a recent article in Journal of Muslims in Europe (5 (2) 2016), the first to analyse SIAN’s rhetoric about Islam and Muslims, using the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA).

Sindre Bangstad is a social anthropologist, and a researcher at KIFO (Institute For Church, Religion and Worldview Research) in Oslo, Norway.

He has undertaken ethnographic research on Muslims in South Africa and Norway. He is the author of inter alia Sekularismens ansikter (Universitetsforlaget, 2009), Anders Breivik and the Rise of Islamophobia (Zed Books, 2014), Hva er rasisme (with Cora A. Døving, Universitetsforlaget, 2015), The Politics of Mediated Presence: Exploring The Voices Of Muslims in Norway’s Mediated Public Spheres  (Scandinavian Academic Press, 2015) and the forthcoming Anthropology Of Our Times: From A Series in Public Anthropology (Palgrave MacMillan, 2017).

Bangstad’s work has been reviewed in the New York Review of Books, London Review of Books and American Ethnologist.

Participation is by invitation only. Interested researchers/students may contact organizers/chairs

Published Nov. 15, 2016 11:01 AM - Last modified June 26, 2017 11:40 AM