Nazar

Nazar is traditionally used as an amulet or talisman to ward off the evil eye and attendant feelings of jealousy or envy; it is generally understood in interpersonal terms and invests in a particular suspicion and superstition that is widely known across many parts of the global South, especially within global Islam. For the purposes of developing an anti-colonial theory of sight, we offer Nazar as a framework in which to triangulate race, colonialism, and psychoanalysis. 

We ask: What might it mean to think about surveillance and racist technology using Nazar as an animating framework? If we understand the harm caused by sight as surveillance, oversight, or violent watching, what might it mean to reconsider it as a protective or healing power, necessary and potentially having its own kind of magic?

Nazar, as the study of anti-Muslim surveillance, arrives from journalist Vanessa Taylor’s newsletter Nazar, focused on harmful forms of statist technologies and vigilante forces surveilling Muslim communities. As an animating framework, Nazar might allow for otherwise theories of repelling the evil eye, the malevolence of the gaze. It might, too, allow for dispersing the structural forms of desire and disgust that compose sight as embedded in systemic forms of racism, fascism, and white supremacy.

For Dark Opacities Lab, the concept of Nazar includes not only the traditional meaning of the evil eye but also the psychoanalytic approach to racism. This approach seeks to understand what is to be coveted, where the envy lies, and where the repeated looking of jealousy reveals itself. Why might it be vital to consider this in light of the recent resurgence and acceleration of anti-Muslim sentiment and violence, particularly in the form of anti-Palestinian racism? 

From 2024 to 2026 Dark Opacities Lab will center Nazar as a mode of warding off and returning the evil eye through the amulet–with the possibility of staring back, defiantly. With this in mind, we aim to collectively study, theorize, and organize around the following themes and ideas embedded in Nazar, as part of a preliminary theory of the evil eye:

Research Cluster Information + Application:

Beginning Winter 2025, Dark Opacities Lab will launch its first research cluster based on its first thematic project, “Nazar: A Theory of the Evil Eye.” We welcome participants primarily based at Concordia and in Montreal, from faculty, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates, along with community members locally, to apply to participate in the research cluster. Based on interest, we may open up the cluster to folks located outside the city and offer a virtual option. 

Selected participants will comprise a small cohort to study, think, and work on Dark Opacities Lab’s bi-annual zines (produced twice a year). We will offer a semester option to work on the theme of Nazar, to read, converse, write and create in relation to the theme. In addition, cohort members who are particularly interested in helping produce a small-scale exhibition on this theme may choose to work with the research cluster for two or more semesters. The time commitment will require participants to meet in the lab every two weeks, and there will be short readings to complete in preparation for meetings, requiring a 2-3 hour commitment per week (including reading + meetings). Ideally, participants will have some background knowledge on some of the noted themes, though curiosity and interest is highly valued as well. 

To apply, please fill in the Google form for the Nazar Research Cluster. This application is due November 15 by 5pm EST. We hope to notify applicants of our decision by early December.