Sara Asfiya Ali is a social designer and researcher from Kerala, India. Her work is grounded in listening closely to the needs and lived experiences of diverse communities across the globe and in building ethical, community-centred digital platforms addressing their needs. She is interested in collective narrative practice as a way of documenting and foregrounding the agency of Muslim communities in contexts of marginalisation, and in creating spaces where people can reclaim the right to tell their own stories in their own ways. The collective narrative document described in this practice note emerged from her Diploma in Narrative Therapy and Community Work and from her ongoing engagement with Muslim women in India.
“Resisting erasure: How Muslim women in India are responding to hate and hostility” is a collective narrative document that brings together the voices of Muslim women living across urban India. The document centres the voices of Muslim women responding to everyday Islamophobia. Through shared stories of childhood, education, family life, work, motherhood, faith and public life, the document highlights the skills, values, knowledges and commitments that Muslim women draw on as they navigate hostility, othering and hate. Grounded in collective narrative practice, this document weaves individual testimonies into a shared voice, illuminating both the impact of social violence and the everyday acts of resistance, refusal, care and dignity that often go unseen. Alongside written narratives, the document includes illustrations that offer a visual language for memory, presence and response. Readers are invited not as analysts but as witnesses and are encouraged to reflect on what these stories make visible about Muslim women’s lives, agency and ongoing struggles for belonging and justice.
Key words: Islamophobia; Muslim; India; collective document; narrative therapy; collective narrative practice
Asfiya Ali, S. (2026). Resisting erasure: How Muslim women in India are responding to hate and hostility [Audio recording]. International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, (1). https://doi.org/10.4320/QDOO9358
Author pronouns: she/her
The collective document described in the audio piece can be downloaded here:
About the illustrator of the collective document
Neha Ayyub is a self-taught artist and writer based in Kerala, India. She loves visual storytelling and often uses graphic narrative as a medium to explore the layered nuances of the mundane. Her graphic narratives and illustrations have been published in The Bombay Literary Magazine, Hāk͟ārā Journal, Hammock Magazine, Current Conservation, and The Little Journal of Northeast India. She loves reading, watching water flow and finding stories in stillness.
References
Denborough, D. (2008). Collective narrative practice: Responding to individuals, groups and communities who have experienced trauma. Dulwich Centre Publications.
Denborough, D. (Ed.). (2006). Trauma: Narrative responses to traumatic experience. Dulwich Centre Publications.