Good Muslims, bad dissent: How progressive politics and securitisation co-produce the other

Join this event to hear Dr Fahad Rahman discuss securitisation and inclusion.

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Good Muslims, bad dissent: How progressive politics and securitisation co-produce the other

30 Apr 2026, 12:00 – 13:00

Room G03
55–59 Gordon Square
London
WC1H 0NT
United Kingdom

Who is regarded as a ‘good Muslim’ in Britain today, and by whom? Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with self-identified progressive and inclusive Muslim communities in London, this talk examines how securitisation and inclusion work not against but through each other.

Through the experiences of an intersex Muslim navigating overlapping exclusions – from counter-terrorism policing to the gendered logics of prayer spaces – I show that otherness is not a property of marginalised people but a political process.

Queer and feminist Muslim voices gain selective recognition: celebrated when confirming normative narratives about Muslim communities, dismissed when implicating state violence. This connects to the expanding use of terrorism-related language to police protest and curtail civil liberties well beyond Muslim populations.

Yet not all otherness is equal: conflating its forms without attending to power and dehumanisation is itself how oppression operates. Progressive spaces are vital yet sit on terrain shaped by securitisation, making vigilance toward how otherness is constructed, by whom, and with what consequences both an intellectual and political imperative.

This event will be particularly useful to researchers, policy makers, and teachers.

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Photo by Tomás Monteiro, sourced from Pexels

Dr Fahad Rahman

LSE Fellow

Department of Social Anthropology at LSE

His research examines how and when progressive, inclusive Islamic approaches are either incorporated into state securitisation or oppose it. He earned a DPhil in anthropology from the University of Oxford and previously worked as an academic psychologist and counsellor, as well as with the American Psychological Association (APA) at the United Nations, advocating for inclusive mental health approaches.