Coping with Islamophobia: how Muslim staff strategize and respond to their working experiences in the academy

Drawing on data generated through research examining the perceptions and experiences of Muslims in the Academy, this paper situates Islamophobia as a critical feature within contemporary discourse, wherein freedom of expression, academic autonomy and progression toward equity are under renewed threat. We examine participants' viewpoints around risk and their everyday experiences of Islamophobia, levels of trust and efficacy in EDI (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) and how institutional systems fail to adequately address structurally ingrained inequalities. How Muslim staff mitigate and/or respond to Islamophobia in Higher Education (HE) points to the presence of tokenistic and contradictory cultures in purportedly progressive and egalitarian spaces. We embrace an autoethnographic orientation through which our professional experiences are implicit but also explicitly presented as brief segments from recorded conversations. Our analysis is also attentive to the neoliberalism that has taken root across universities, often producing conflicting and counterproductive impacts that exacerbate inequalities.