Racialization refers to processes of the discursive production of racial identities. It signifies the extension of dehumanizing and racial meanings to a previously racially unclassified relationship, social practice, or group. Put simply, a group of people is seen as a "race", when it was not before.

Racialization of religion

An ongoing scholarly debate covers the racialization of religious communities, whereby adherents to Judaism

Judaism

Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

 and Islam

Islam

Islam . The most common are and .   : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

 are informally assigned immutable pseudo-characteristics in the popular imagination of a culture, despite many individual adherents to those religions not visibly sharing in those characteristics; this racialization extends to the descendants of the adherents, even though those descendants may often convert away from active observance of the religion of their forebears but also retain the lingering cultural aspects of the religion for familial and community purposes.

The most immediate effect of the racialization of religion is the internalization of such racialization by the descendants of adherents, whereby the descendants of adherents accept and internalize their religiously-influenced familial culture as an ethnoracial distinction and identity. One of the applications of this racialization is nationalism

Nationalism

Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

, whereby the created "race" seeks to assert cultural and nation

Nation

A nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and/or history. In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government irrespective of their ethnic make-up...

al aspirations which are compatible and accommodating to other groups which do not necessarily share in the experience of racialization. Another one of the applications of this racialization is racism

Racism

Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

 and discrimination

Discrimination

Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...

, whereby those who are racialized are barred from participation in any public or private function of society due to the negative "attributes" of the race assigned to them.

Racialization of Labour

The racialization of labour involves the segregation and appointment of workers based on perceived ethnic differences. It produces a hierarchical arrangement which limits employee agency and mobility based on their race. The process of racialization is reinforced through presupposed, stereotypical qualities which are imposed upon the racialized person by the racializer. It is then normalized by the promotion of ‘colourblindness’ through the use of “soft” language which avoids highlighting ethnic differences.