Black Muslim Refugee

This multisited project, the first of its kind, exposes links between US military violence abroad and police brutality at home through an exploration of the lives of Somali refugees. Black Muslim Refugee traces the journeys of these refugees from civil war–era Somalia to the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya to their eventual arrival in San Diego. Maxamed Abumaye analyzes Somali refugees' experiences through the dual lenses of anti-Blackness and Islamophobia. He situates their displacement within the larger context of East Africa's colonial history, as well as the policy consequences of the American-backed war on terror and war on drugs. Throughout, Abumaye's centering of Somali subjectivity underlines this community's critical and creative capacity to defy the mechanisms that seek to "manage" and ultimately control them.