Abdellali Hajjat is Associate Professor in sociology at the Université libre de Bruxelles and a member of the Group for Research on Ethnic Relations, Migration & Equality. He was Associate Professor in political science at the University of Paris Nanterre (2010-2019) and EURIAS Junior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (University of Edinburgh). In 2022, he was awarded the Tyler Stovall Mission Prize by the Western Society for French History.

He co-authored Islamophobia in France. The Construction of the “Muslim problem” (University of Georgia Press, 2023), and published The Wretched of France: The 1983 March for Equality and Against Racism (Indiana University Press, 2022) and Les frontières de l'""identité nationale"": l'injonction à l'assimilation en France métropolitaine et coloniale (Éditions Amsterdam, 2nd ed., 2024).

His research interests focus on various issues: citizenship and race in French law; urban uprisings and political mobilizations by postcolonial immigrants in France in working-class neighborhoods, particularly in May 68 and afterwards; Islamophobia as a “total social fact”, construction of the “Muslim problem” and redefinition of French secularism; hate crime and criminal justice system; postcolonial controversies in Belgium.

He is co-founder of the a academic journal Marronnages: Race & Social Sciences, and co-editor, with historian Jocelyne Dakhlia, of the series ""Contreparties"" published by Éditions Amsterdam.

ULB Profile

Contact : abdellali.hajjat@ulb.be