Anti-Muslim racism in Finland: Finnish female muslim converts' experiences on racialization and misrecognition

This thesis explores the experiences of Finnish female Muslim converts on antiMuslim racism, racialization, and misrecognition. The research is rooted in the criticism of the current status quo regarding race relations in Finnish society. The study will thus explore how whiteness as a phenotype and as a socially constructed racial category has been part of the Finnish identity construction throughout history. The experiences of Finnish female Muslim converts on anti-Muslim racism are to be seen as a continuum of the historical "ethnoculturalization" of the Sámi and the Roma and the racism they have faced. The study also considers the Tatar Muslim minority's position in Finnish society, comparing their status as "Finnishized" Muslims to the other Muslim communities, who are by anti-Muslim racist terms defined as racial and cultural Others. The study will also analyze gendered forms of anti-Muslim racism, focusing on the Orientalist stereotype of an "oppressed Muslim woman." The interviews conducted for this thesis will also explore the concept of agency in the converts' narratives of their conversion stories and the Du Boisian doubleconsciousness to analyze how the stereotype is reflected in the female converts' identities as Muslim women in public. Keywords: Anti-Muslim Racism; conversion; misrecognition; racialization; Finnish Muslims; female Muslims.