Quick Facts
Biography
Chris Allen (born 1966) is a British sociologist at the Institute of Applied Social Studies (IASS) at the University of Birmingham, named by the Deutsche Welle as an expert on the topic of contemporary Islamophobia.
Research into Islamophobia
Shortly after the events of 9/11 he was commissioned by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia to co-author its "Summary report on Islamophobia in the EU after 11 September 2001" with Jorgen S. Nielsen. Published in May 2002, the report concluded that "a greater receptivity towards anti-Muslim and other xenophobic ideas and sentiments has, and may well continue, to become more tolerated". At the same time, Allen apparently acknowledged that "there were very few serious [anti-Muslim] attacks" and that Islamophobia "manifested itself in quite basic and low-level ways." According to Allen, Islamophobia is not simply a post-9/11 phenomenon, but builds on a tradition of xenophobia and fear of Islam.
In 2012, he was asked to be on the board of "a cross-government working group to tackle anti-Muslim hatred".