In the nearly two decades since the 9/11 event, the United States as a whole, and New York City, in particular, has escalated its state-sanctioned surveillance in the lives and activities of Muslims in the United States. 

In this lecture, Dr. Ali will draw upon his extensive ethnographic research with Muslim communities in New York City and Southern California to explore the ramifications of police infiltration and monitoring on Muslim secondary and undergraduate students. Dr. Ali examines how police surveillance affected interpersonal relationships within these communities utilizing notions of panoptic gaze and governmentality. Specifically, he addresses the themes of self-censorship and self-disciplining behaviors. In this talk, he will ask how we might rethink and reconsider the practice of the ethnographic interview within the context of developing a community-responsive research methodology.

This lecture is the keynote event of the 2019 North Africa Research Program - “A Critical Return to Youth” and rounds off our program of roundtables and workshops engaging with the lived realities of Muslim youth in the aftermath of historically significant local and global political events.