How do academic spaces perpetuate racial and religious inequalities, and what can be done to challenge them?

This thought-provoking book examines the intersections of ethnicity, faith and class with a focus on British South Asian Muslim identity. Drawing on ethnographic insights and theoretical frameworks such as postcoloniality, orientalism and hybridity, the author unpacks representations of race, religion and Islamophobia in both academic and public discourse. By connecting historical legacies of imperialism with contemporary inequalities, the book offers both critical analysis and practical suggestions for action.

Written in an accessible yet provocative style, this book is set to spark vital conversations and inspire meaningful interventions in higher education and beyond.

“This is compulsory reading for those who wish to comprehend the influence that the lingering vestiges of coloniality exerts on the Academy. Alam offers a sumptuous critique, conveyed with inimitable, authentic elegance, that exposes the failings and performativity of the EDI agenda in higher education. Moreover, the urgent need for decoloniality as a means to rectify the marginality of British Muslims in UK society is expertly put.” Zain Sardar, Aziz Foundation

“Brave, nuanced and unrelenting, Alam is at his best here. Combining his earlier achievements in writing fiction that animated a unique ethnic minority position, here Alam brings together a serious concern with the enduring power of racialised thinking and working that structure the space of EDI in the academy.” Ajmal Hussain, University of Warwick

Yunis Alam is Head of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Bradford.