Race, religion, and coloniality: ex-Muslim “coming-out” narratives in France

Abstract

In the past few years, a number of individuals have begun using YouTube as a platform to document their transition from being Muslim to being ex-Muslims. This article examines the “coming-out” narratives of self-described ex-Muslims in France. Generally speaking, two main types of videos exist: narratives of transition from Islam to atheism and narratives of religious conversion from Islam to Christianity. There are few differences between these two main types. Both narrative types are inherently political, intersecting significantly with broader Islamophobic and secularist-nationalist discourses in France. Drawing on a thematic analysis of several YouTube videos, within the relevant historical and sociopolitical contexts of France, this article argues that public declarations of apostasy from Islam in France (as narratives of salvation embracing the promise of modernity, while critiquing the supposedly inherent backwardness of Islam) are engaged in a particular mode of subjectivation that cannot be understood outside of the ontological afterlives of colonialism.