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Dr. Louise Cainkar

Dr. Louise CainkarMarquette University

Lalumiere Hall, 366

MilwaukeeWI53201United States of America(414) 288-5714louise.cainkar@marquette.edu

Professor and Director of the Interdisciplinary Peace Studies program

Social and Cultural Sciences

2024 Recipient of the Way Klingler Fellowship Award

2023 Recipient of the Nora Finnegan Werra Award for Faculty Achievement

2021 Recipient of Marquette University Community Engaged Teaching Award

Education

Ph.D., Northwestern University

Research Interests

Dr. Cainkar studies the intersection of race, gender, public policy, national security, and dominant ideologies, particularly as these impact the quality of life of Arab and Muslim Americans. She has conducted research on Palestinians in the US, Arab and Muslim Americans after 9/11, the social experiences of Muslim women in the US, Islamophobia and hate crimes, citizenship and belonging among transnational Arab American youth living in Yemen, Palestine, and Jordan, the impact of economic sanctions on women and children in Iraq, the forced migration of Palestinians and Jordanians from Kuwait, and the policing of Arab and Muslim American communities. Her current research focuses on the resettlement of Afghans in the US post 2022 and the FIFA world cup, Morocco, and Arab and African diasporas.

"Arab Americans Settling Afghan Refugees." An abstract of a chapter forthcoming in Reimagining Arab American Studies, Danielle Haque and Waleed Mahdi (eds.)
"Trump's Immigration Order And Living In 'Crisis Mode". An interview with Chicago Public Radio.

Community Service

MENA/Arab American Briefs for the Illinois MENA Committee of the MENA Governmental Advisory Council of Illinois

Board Member and Treasurer, Arab American Action Network, Chicago

Professional Affiliations

Association of Middle East Women’s Studies. Board Member & Treasurer. 2012-present.
Arab American Studies Association. Past President, President, and Board Member. 2014-19.
Review of Middle East Studies. Associate Editor. 2017-present.
Sociology of Religion. Associate Editor. 2017-2020
Committee on the Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in Sociology, American Sociological Association. Appointed by President. 2016-2018. Re-appointed, 2018-2022.

Professional Interests

Teaching interests:

Arab American studies
Muslims in diaspora
International migration, migrants and refugees
Social justice

Publications

Book

2023

Louise Cainkar, Pauline Homsi Vinson, and Amira Jarmakani, eds. Sajjilu Arab American: A Reader in SWANA Studies. (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press).

2022

Michael Suleiman, Suad Joseph, and Louise Cainkar, eds. Arab American Women: Representation and Refusal (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press).

2009

Homeland Insecurity: The Arab American and Muslim American Experience After 9/11* (New York: Russell Sage Foundation Press).
*Received Honorable Mention for Adult Non-Fiction from the Arab American National Museum, 2010 Annual Book Awards.

Selected Articles & Chapters

2023

“Racial Control under the Guise of Terror Threat: Policing of US Muslim, Arab, and SWANA communities.” Critical Studies on Terrorism 16:1, 152-175.

2022

“The Social Construction of Difference and the Arab American Experience Revisited.” The I.B.Tauris Handbook of Sociology and The Middle East, edited by Fatma Müge Göçek & Gamze Evcimen. (London: I.B. Tauris).

2021

"Palestine--and Empire--are Central to Arab American/SWANA Studies." Journal of Palestine Studies.

2019

“Hegemonic Femininity and Hijab as a Human Right.” in Arabs at Home and in the World: Human Rights, Gender Politics, and Identity, edited by Karla McCanders. (New York: Routledge). Pp 3-24.
“Islamophobia and the US ideological infrastructure of White Supremacy.” in Routledge International Handbook of Islamophobia. Irene Zempi and Imran Awan, eds. (London: Routledge). Pp 239-251.

2018

“Fluid Terror Threat: A Genealogy of the Racialization of Arab, Muslim, and South Asian Americans.” Amerasia Journal. Vol. 44 (1): 27-60.
“Review of Race Scholarship and the War on Terror.” Journal of the Sociology of Race and Ethnicity; Vol. 4 (2): 165-177.With Saher Selod.

2017

“The Arab American Experience: From Invisibility to Heightened Visibility” in The Routledge Handbook of Asian American Studies. (New York: Routledge). Cindy I-Fen Cheng, editor.

2015

“Race and Racialization: Demographic Trends and the Process of Reckoning Social Place” in Handbook of Arab American Psychology. (New York: Routledge). Mona Amer and Germine Awad, editors.