Il lato quotidiano dell’islamofobia. Micro-razzismo a scuola tra differenzialismo culturale e razzismo spirituale

The paper explores everyday forms of racism toward sons and daughters of Muslim migrants born or raised in Italy since the late 1990s and early 2000s by shedding light on recent debates on Islamophobia in Italy and Europe. Based on my interlocutors’ narratives about their experiences of racism at different levels of education, the paper shows how these experiences significantly impacted their identity paths. The case is initially read through the lens of anthropological literature on cultural racism to introduce the discussion of another way of marking difference that seems particularly apt to describe long-standing forms of discrimination against ethnic-religious minorities in Europe: spiritual racism. Then, the paper introduces the notion of “micro-racism” to shed light on how Islamophobia is reproduced in an elusive and almost imperceptible way in daily interactions with teachers and peers, especially since middle school. Defining these forms of racism as “micro” is not meant to belittle the phenomenon but to point to its specificity. It is useful to highlight the particular ways in which ethnoreligious difference is marked in a context like Italy where minorities are relatively less visible than in other European countries. Finally, the paper refers to recent academic discussions on femonationalism, yet by moving the analysis from the level of public discourse to that of daily interactions between female teachers and students especially.