View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by De Montfort University Open Research Archive This is an author accepted manuscript, not the published article. Accepted for publication by Security Dialogue (published by Sage) on 12th June 2018. The published version will differ from this pre-print. Please cite the published version Authors: Dr Nadya Ali, Lecturer in International Relations, University of Sussex Dr Ben Whitham, Lecturer in International Relations, De Montfort University Corresponding author: Dr Ben Whitham (
[email protected]), Lecturer in International Relations, Department of Politics, People and Place, De Montfort University, Leicester. 1 The Unbearable Anxiety of Being: Ideological Fantasies of British Muslims beyond the Politics of Security Abstract Since the advent of the 'War on Terror' British Muslims have been designated as a source of anxiety by politicians, journalists and publics alike. Fears that began over terrorism have extended to the opening of Islamic faith schools, the meaning of clothing and halal slaughter. Critical scholarship that engages with these developments in the fields of politics and international relations tends to view them through paradigms of (in)security. Whilst these contributions have been helpful in understanding the construction of a Muslim 'problem', this article demonstrates how the array of issues incorporated by this problem exceeds the politics of security. The article develops an original conceptual and analytic framework, drawing upon Slavoj Žižek's Lacanian theory of ideology, to argue that political and media ‘scandals’ about what an imagined 'Muslim community' gets up to are best understood as ideological fantasies.