Our Approach
Photovoice in Practice
Through a photovoice approach, participants use photography, storytelling, and reflection to document and share their lived experiences in ways that center their voices, perspectives, and realities on their own terms. This process creates space for Black Muslim womxn to explore themes of identity, belonging, wellness, faith, safety, and community through creative and community-rooted expression.
The stories, reflections, and insights shared through this work will help inform the development of practical community resources and toolkits aimed at supporting more informed, responsive, and accountable approaches to engaging and supporting Black Muslim womxn within organizations, institutions, and community spaces across Canada.
Grounded in Care and Collaboration
Why It Matters
Why This Research Is Urgent
Black Muslim womxn navigate overlapping experiences of anti-Black racism, Islamophobia, and gendered exclusion. Yet their voices remain underrepresented across research, policy, and public discourse.
This gap limits how institutions and communities understand and respond to inequality, often resulting in approaches that fall short of care, accountability, and meaningful change. OVOS exists to help close that gap by centering lived experience as essential knowledge and creating a toolkit to combat this.
3x
Many Black Muslim womxn describe carrying multiple layers of bias at once in public, professional, and community spaces.
Too often
Research on Muslim communities overlooks Black Muslim womxn specifically, leaving critical stories, needs, and strengths undocumented.
Now
Community-led storytelling and photovoice create space for evidence rooted in lived experience, helping drive advocacy, visibility, and more responsive systems.
Further Learning & Research
Explore selected research, writing, and community-informed resources to deepen understanding of the experiences shaping the lives of Black Muslim womxn.
Intersectionality
Research exploring how anti-Black racism, Islamophobia, and gendered discrimination intersect across everyday life, institutions, and public spaces.
Health & Wellbeing
Studies focused on mental health, belonging, safety, and access to culturally responsive care.
Education & Employment
Reports examining school environments, workplace experiences, leadership barriers, and visibility.
Research Links
- Anti-Blackness Is by Design, Not by Accident
- Sarah Jama’s censure: Making people feel uncomfortable is part of the job
- How AI resurrects racist stereotypes and disinformation — and why fact-checking isn’t enough
- Ali, N. N., El-Sherif, L., & Mire, H. Y. (2023). Islamophobia and proximities to whiteness: Organizing outside of the Brown Muslim subject. ReOrient, 8(1), 78–100.
- Ali, N. N. (2018). Emancipation in an Islamophobic age: Finding agency in “nonrecognition,” “refusal,” and “self-recognition.” Journal of Critical Race Inquiry, 5(1).
- At the intersection between blackness and muslimness (talk)
- Mugabo, D. (2016). On rocks and hard places: A reflection on antiblackness in organizing against Islamophobia. Critical Ethnic Studies, 2(2), 159–183.
- Mendes, J. T. A. (2011). Exploring Blackness from Muslim, female, Canadian realities: Founding selfhood, (re)claiming identity and negotiating belongingness within/against a hostile nation. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario.
- Mendes, J.-T. (2020). Black Death, mourning and the terror of black reproduction: Aborting the Black Muslim self, becoming the assimilated subject. Souls, 22(1), 56–70.
- Mohamed, H. (2017). The triple consciousness of Black Muslim women: The experiences of first generation Somali-Canadian women activists. Journal of Somali Studies, 4(1/2), 9–42.
Community-Based Research
Work highlighting participatory methods such as photovoice and storytelling that center lived experience as knowledge.
Faith, Identity & Belonging
Scholarship and community writing exploring identity, faith practices, representation, and belonging within Muslim and broader public spaces.
Where to begin
Start with university research centers, peer-reviewed journals, public health institutes, and trusted community organizations. Where possible, prioritize work led by Black Muslim womxn and research developed in partnership with community.