This educational animation, titled “What is Islamophobia?”, was commissioned by Professor Peter Hopkins at Newcastle University and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Scripted from Professor Hopkins’ research, it introduces Islamophobia as a form of anti-Muslim racism, explains the process of racialisation behind it, and offers clear action items for allyship.

The animation works through a set of plain questions: what Islamophobia is, how it operates, who it affects, what its impacts are, how it is enabled, and what any of us can do to challenge it. The aim was to take a subject that is often treated as abstract or contentious and make it concrete and approachable, so that a viewer comes away not just understanding the concept but knowing how to respond to it.

I worked in a deliberately warm, accessible illustration style to lower the defensiveness that heavy subjects can provoke, and to keep the focus on understanding and action rather than blame. Making difficult social research clear and genuinely useful to a general audience is the heart of my animation work with academics and researchers.

The film has gone on to be used internationally as a teaching resource, including being featured by Georgetown University’s Bridge Initiative, a research project dedicated to public education on Islamophobia. It sits within Professor Hopkins’ wider body of work on anti-racism and Muslim identities at Newcastle’s School of Geography, Politics and Sociology.

If you’re a researcher or organisation working on anti-racism, equality and diversity, or any subject that needs to be communicated with care, and you’d like to turn your research into animation, I’d love to hear from you. Get in touch.