Towards an understanding of the activism and practices of the Islamophobia Research Collective in Kerala, India

This article examines how activists in the Islamophobia Research Collective in Kerala transform their lived experiences of Islamophobia into systematic documentation, knowledge production, and collective action. Situated within a political landscape reshaped by Hindutva, where Muslims encounter heightened surveillance and constraints on political agency within enduring structural hierarchies, the article traces the Islamophobia Research Collective's emergence from earlier activist networks and the development of an analytical framework centred on direct and indirect Islamophobia. It analyses the everyday practices that sustain this work, including verifying hate speech, documenting Islamophobic incidents, and producing monthly and annual reports, and evaluates their impact both internally on activist subjectivities and externally on public discourse. The analysis shows how locally grounded, community-based activism generates forms of public knowledge, sustains solidarities, and strengthens resistance to Islamophobia in contemporary India.