Black Muslim Refugee: Militarism, Policing, and Somali American Resistance to State Violence with Maxamed Abu-maye

The Immigration History Research Center and the Department of Sociology welcome Dr. Maxamed Abu-maye on April 8, 2026. This event is free and open to the public. Parking will be validated.

Maxamed Abu-maye is the author of the book Black Muslim Refugee: Militarism, Policing, and Somali American Resistance to State Violence (University of California Press, 2025). This multi-sited project, the first of its kind, exposes the links between US military violence abroad and police brutality at home through a profound exploration of Somali refugee lives. Black Muslim Refugee traces the globe-spanning journeys of these refugees, from civil war–era Somalia to the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya to their eventual arrival in San Diego, and Maxamed Abu-maye analyzes their experiences through the dual lenses of anti-Blackness and Islamophobia. He situates their displacement within the larger context of East Africa's colonial history, as well as the policy consequences of the American-backed war on terror and war on drugs. Throughout, Abu-maye's centering of Somali subjectivity underlines this community's critical and creative capacity to defy the mechanisms that seek to "manage" and ultimately control them.

This event is co-sponsored by the Department of Sociology, the Department of African American & African Studies, and the Center for Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Gender & Sexuality Studies (RIDGS).