Policing Airport Spaces: The Muslim Experience of Scrutiny

Post-9/11, airports are one place where citizens are more likely to have interactions initiated by authorities and this may be even more so for Muslims; certainly, this is suggested by the phrase, ‘flying while Muslim’. In this article, I first review research conducted with Scottish Muslims, which found that the experience of being routinely stopped, treated with disrespect, having valued identities such as Britishness and respectability denied or (in the case of Muslim identity) devalued, and feeling publicly humiliated, is having a negative impact on relations with authorities (and potentially the wider community). I will then present a case study conducted with staff at a Scottish airport, focusing on the structural and organizational factors that may warrant Muslims’ concerns about being misrecognized as ‘other’ and dangerous, and constrained in how they may behave in the airport space. This research highlights areas for further investigation and intervention.