Pub Date : 2022-03-11DOI: 10.1080/17539153.2022.2048990
K. Chukwuma
ABSTRACT This article explores a neglected question in ongoing debates about counter-terrorism efforts in Nigeria: How is Nigeria’s counter-terrorism strategy discursively framed? The article argues, in part, that Nigeria’s counter-terrorism strategy is essentially a political activity which contributes to the production of a specific Nigerian identity by designating north-eastern Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin as “ungoverned” spaces. This construction of identity through geography, though, has important implications for policy, identity and security in Nigeria, and beyond. This study of Nigeria, I also argue, presents an opportunity for a much-needed conversation between CTS and postcolonialism for broadening knowledge on discourses around (counter-)terrorism. Drawing upon the concept of space in postcolonial scholarship, this article demonstrates how the relationship between geography, identity and subjectivity offers a broader framework for articulating continuing, and recent, discourses of counter-terrorism. It demonstrates how Nigerian counter-terrorism discourse reproduces, and transforms, well-known Euro-centric and state-centred discourses which intersect with colonial and imperialistic ideas (and practices). In doing so, the article makes two notable contributions: first, it provides a sustained focus on official articulations of counter-terrorism in Nigeria by examining important primary data. Second, in mobilizing the concept of space in postcolonialism, it facilitates crucial theoretical reflections within (critical) terrorism studies.
{"title":"Critical terrorism studies and postcolonialism: constructing ungoverned spaces in counter-terrorism discourse in Nigeria","authors":"K. Chukwuma","doi":"10.1080/17539153.2022.2048990","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17539153.2022.2048990","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article explores a neglected question in ongoing debates about counter-terrorism efforts in Nigeria: How is Nigeria’s counter-terrorism strategy discursively framed? The article argues, in part, that Nigeria’s counter-terrorism strategy is essentially a political activity which contributes to the production of a specific Nigerian identity by designating north-eastern Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin as “ungoverned” spaces. This construction of identity through geography, though, has important implications for policy, identity and security in Nigeria, and beyond. This study of Nigeria, I also argue, presents an opportunity for a much-needed conversation between CTS and postcolonialism for broadening knowledge on discourses around (counter-)terrorism. Drawing upon the concept of space in postcolonial scholarship, this article demonstrates how the relationship between geography, identity and subjectivity offers a broader framework for articulating continuing, and recent, discourses of counter-terrorism. It demonstrates how Nigerian counter-terrorism discourse reproduces, and transforms, well-known Euro-centric and state-centred discourses which intersect with colonial and imperialistic ideas (and practices). In doing so, the article makes two notable contributions: first, it provides a sustained focus on official articulations of counter-terrorism in Nigeria by examining important primary data. Second, in mobilizing the concept of space in postcolonialism, it facilitates crucial theoretical reflections within (critical) terrorism studies.","PeriodicalId":46483,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies on Terrorism","volume":"47 1","pages":"399 - 416"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85089330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-05DOI: 10.1080/17539153.2022.2047440
I. Mohammed
ABSTRACT Decolonising academia has gained much traction in some global north and global south countries over the last few years, resulting in initiatives such as decolonising the curricula. However, the terrorism industry as a whole has so far escaped such calls. The industry has a long and deep relationship with global north countries, such as the US. The industry produces a range of surveillance and military technologies and knowledge on political violence. The knowledge is often used to develop counter-terrorism strategies that are used as part of global north democratising projects to ensure that global north neo-liberal, political and cultural ideals are the future for global south countries, making them manageable. Therefore, an important question needs to be posed, which is, can terrorism studies be decolonised? I believe that terrorism studies can be decolonised but only by developing decolonial terrorism studies. However, I am aware that some governments and terrorism scholars, institutions, NGOs and the military and tech industrial complex may be against this idea for prejudicial, political, economic and epistemic reasons. Others may favour “friendly” decolonization, as a way to maintain existing power structures, control and epistemic direction of terrorism studies.
{"title":"Decolonialisation and the Terrorism Industry","authors":"I. Mohammed","doi":"10.1080/17539153.2022.2047440","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17539153.2022.2047440","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Decolonising academia has gained much traction in some global north and global south countries over the last few years, resulting in initiatives such as decolonising the curricula. However, the terrorism industry as a whole has so far escaped such calls. The industry has a long and deep relationship with global north countries, such as the US. The industry produces a range of surveillance and military technologies and knowledge on political violence. The knowledge is often used to develop counter-terrorism strategies that are used as part of global north democratising projects to ensure that global north neo-liberal, political and cultural ideals are the future for global south countries, making them manageable. Therefore, an important question needs to be posed, which is, can terrorism studies be decolonised? I believe that terrorism studies can be decolonised but only by developing decolonial terrorism studies. However, I am aware that some governments and terrorism scholars, institutions, NGOs and the military and tech industrial complex may be against this idea for prejudicial, political, economic and epistemic reasons. Others may favour “friendly” decolonization, as a way to maintain existing power structures, control and epistemic direction of terrorism studies.","PeriodicalId":46483,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies on Terrorism","volume":"68 1","pages":"417 - 440"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80067032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-02-18DOI: 10.1080/17539153.2022.2038825
Agnes Termeer, I.G.B.M. Duyvesteyn
ABSTRACT Although jihadist terrorist organisations envisage a society divided according to strict gender roles, they have increasingly turned to women in pursuit of their goals. This is a double-edged sword for jihadist groups: while recruitment of women increases the pool of activists, the discrepancy between their patriarchal beliefs and women’s enlistment may have implications for their legitimacy. How jihadists address this dilemma in their appeals to women, however, has received little attention to date. Integrating literature on recruitment and legitimacy, this article looks at the case of ISIS from a gender lens to explore how the group reconciled its recruitment of women with its patriarchal ideology. A critical discourse analysis of the group’s publications between 2015 and 2017 reveals three gendered narratives that ISIS has used to substantiate its recruitment of women. These narratives depict women as builders of the Ummah, representatives of Islam, and guardians of the Caliphate. In all constructs, it is argued, women are assigned agency, with their violent agency specifically developing over time. The legitimation attempts of ISIS provide insight into the growing appeal to enlist women by patriarchal terrorist organisations, their ability to rationalise this, and the potentially refutable claims to counter this trend.
{"title":"The inclusion of women in jihad: gendered practices of legitimation in Islamic State recruitment propaganda","authors":"Agnes Termeer, I.G.B.M. Duyvesteyn","doi":"10.1080/17539153.2022.2038825","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17539153.2022.2038825","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Although jihadist terrorist organisations envisage a society divided according to strict gender roles, they have increasingly turned to women in pursuit of their goals. This is a double-edged sword for jihadist groups: while recruitment of women increases the pool of activists, the discrepancy between their patriarchal beliefs and women’s enlistment may have implications for their legitimacy. How jihadists address this dilemma in their appeals to women, however, has received little attention to date. Integrating literature on recruitment and legitimacy, this article looks at the case of ISIS from a gender lens to explore how the group reconciled its recruitment of women with its patriarchal ideology. A critical discourse analysis of the group’s publications between 2015 and 2017 reveals three gendered narratives that ISIS has used to substantiate its recruitment of women. These narratives depict women as builders of the Ummah, representatives of Islam, and guardians of the Caliphate. In all constructs, it is argued, women are assigned agency, with their violent agency specifically developing over time. The legitimation attempts of ISIS provide insight into the growing appeal to enlist women by patriarchal terrorist organisations, their ability to rationalise this, and the potentially refutable claims to counter this trend.","PeriodicalId":46483,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies on Terrorism","volume":"15 1","pages":"463 - 483"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2022-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78074768","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-02-13DOI: 10.1080/17539153.2022.2038210
Kevin Hearty
ABSTRACT Using the case study of statements of denial issued by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) over an extended 35-year period, this article critically examines how non-state armed groups (NSAGs) use statements of denial when engaging with various audiences across time and space. It posits that these statements are an integral part of how NSAGs communicate with different audiences during their armed campaigns, and subsequently during the process of transitioning out of political violence. At the same time that these statements feed into the macro-level “propaganda war” between the NSAG and the state, this article maintains that they also reflect the complex intimate relationship between NSAGs and the communities from which they emerge. Arguing that statements of denial help NSAGs to favourably frame how the conduct of its campaign, the character of its members and its internal cohesion are understood by proximate and distant audiences, the article tracks the qualitative changes to IRA statements that would eventually become a key component in the performance of the peace process by the late 1990s.
{"title":"Fish swimming in denial: non-state armed groups, “propaganda wars”, and “performing” peace processes","authors":"Kevin Hearty","doi":"10.1080/17539153.2022.2038210","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17539153.2022.2038210","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Using the case study of statements of denial issued by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) over an extended 35-year period, this article critically examines how non-state armed groups (NSAGs) use statements of denial when engaging with various audiences across time and space. It posits that these statements are an integral part of how NSAGs communicate with different audiences during their armed campaigns, and subsequently during the process of transitioning out of political violence. At the same time that these statements feed into the macro-level “propaganda war” between the NSAG and the state, this article maintains that they also reflect the complex intimate relationship between NSAGs and the communities from which they emerge. Arguing that statements of denial help NSAGs to favourably frame how the conduct of its campaign, the character of its members and its internal cohesion are understood by proximate and distant audiences, the article tracks the qualitative changes to IRA statements that would eventually become a key component in the performance of the peace process by the late 1990s.","PeriodicalId":46483,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies on Terrorism","volume":"10 1","pages":"311 - 332"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2022-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79000490","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-02-12DOI: 10.1080/17539153.2021.2013025
Shala Cachelin
ABSTRACT This article argues that the conduct of state violence by the U.S. drone programme against FATA, with roots in racist and Orientalist discourse, is a contemporary manifestation of imperial air power. While the U.S. drone programme has had a devastating effect on the civilians residing within the programme’s operational areas, this article will focus on Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). With its own colonial history and position as the epicentre for U.S. drone strikes throughout the War on Terror, this region’s civilian population has been caught in the crossfire. Though incredibly valuable, the current literature pertaining to the tribal region is largely isolated from colonial realities, which are necessary to understanding the function of U.S. drones within a contemporary context. This article will examine the various levels of civilian harm endured by FATA civilians by analysing these experiences alongside the imperial nature and neo-colonial emergence of drones, as well as the region’s colonial history. Although global attention has shifted away from this region as the U.S. drone programme has expanded into other areas including Yemen and Somalia, an understanding of the FATA civilian experience illuminates patterns of imperial air power and mechanisms of control actively weaponised against various populations.
{"title":"The U.S. drone programme, imperial air power and Pakistan’s federally administered tribal areas","authors":"Shala Cachelin","doi":"10.1080/17539153.2021.2013025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17539153.2021.2013025","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article argues that the conduct of state violence by the U.S. drone programme against FATA, with roots in racist and Orientalist discourse, is a contemporary manifestation of imperial air power. While the U.S. drone programme has had a devastating effect on the civilians residing within the programme’s operational areas, this article will focus on Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). With its own colonial history and position as the epicentre for U.S. drone strikes throughout the War on Terror, this region’s civilian population has been caught in the crossfire. Though incredibly valuable, the current literature pertaining to the tribal region is largely isolated from colonial realities, which are necessary to understanding the function of U.S. drones within a contemporary context. This article will examine the various levels of civilian harm endured by FATA civilians by analysing these experiences alongside the imperial nature and neo-colonial emergence of drones, as well as the region’s colonial history. Although global attention has shifted away from this region as the U.S. drone programme has expanded into other areas including Yemen and Somalia, an understanding of the FATA civilian experience illuminates patterns of imperial air power and mechanisms of control actively weaponised against various populations.","PeriodicalId":46483,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies on Terrorism","volume":"2 1","pages":"441 - 462"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2022-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88212434","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-02-09DOI: 10.1080/17539153.2022.2038827
F. Mami
{"title":"Al-Fadih wa Tamthiluhu: Mudawalet fi shakli souriyah al-mukharab wa tashakuliha al-assir (The atrocious and its representation: deliberations on Syria’s destroyed form and its laborious formation)","authors":"F. Mami","doi":"10.1080/17539153.2022.2038827","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17539153.2022.2038827","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46483,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies on Terrorism","volume":"1 1","pages":"510 - 512"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2022-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73745462","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-02-09DOI: 10.1080/17539153.2022.2038826
Anastassiya Mahon
The on a vital aspect of any terrorism and counterterrorism debate: the representation, use, and further appropriation of the Muslim body. The author concentrates on the question of the Muslim female body, investigating and dissecting the ways Muslim women have been portrayed in books, art, and the media. She does not shy away from discussing challenging cases, such as the cases of Shamima Begum and the child AB in the UK, to emphasise the lack of evidence when cases like these make the headlines. The case of Shamima Begum, a 15-year-old teenager who left the UK to join ISIS, is an illustration of the British government’s inaction and disregard towards Muslim women in difficult situations, especially if they face hardship on foreign soil. The story of the child AB , a white British child, who was allegedly placed into foster care provided by a Muslim woman, turned out to be fake. However, it showed that the media can be eager to skip factchecking when a “scandalous” story involving Muslims appears on the horizon. out a of how cases involving Muslim women presented by the and condemning the official response by the UK government, together the influences of the War on Terror (WOT), the hate against Muslims, and the failures of UK authorities to recognise and help Muslim women, as the case of Shamima Begum clearly shows. The will be of particular interest to scholars and practitioners who want to understand the representation of Muslim women historically and in contemporary media, and how narratives the Muslim are and shaped.
{"title":"Book review of the political appropriation of the Muslim body: islamophobia, counter-terrorism law and gender","authors":"Anastassiya Mahon","doi":"10.1080/17539153.2022.2038826","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17539153.2022.2038826","url":null,"abstract":"The on a vital aspect of any terrorism and counterterrorism debate: the representation, use, and further appropriation of the Muslim body. The author concentrates on the question of the Muslim female body, investigating and dissecting the ways Muslim women have been portrayed in books, art, and the media. She does not shy away from discussing challenging cases, such as the cases of Shamima Begum and the child AB in the UK, to emphasise the lack of evidence when cases like these make the headlines. The case of Shamima Begum, a 15-year-old teenager who left the UK to join ISIS, is an illustration of the British government’s inaction and disregard towards Muslim women in difficult situations, especially if they face hardship on foreign soil. The story of the child AB , a white British child, who was allegedly placed into foster care provided by a Muslim woman, turned out to be fake. However, it showed that the media can be eager to skip factchecking when a “scandalous” story involving Muslims appears on the horizon. out a of how cases involving Muslim women presented by the and condemning the official response by the UK government, together the influences of the War on Terror (WOT), the hate against Muslims, and the failures of UK authorities to recognise and help Muslim women, as the case of Shamima Begum clearly shows. The will be of particular interest to scholars and practitioners who want to understand the representation of Muslim women historically and in contemporary media, and how narratives the Muslim are and shaped.","PeriodicalId":46483,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies on Terrorism","volume":"1 1","pages":"508 - 509"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2022-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74417778","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-02-04DOI: 10.1080/17539153.2022.2036423
Jessica White
ABSTRACT The adoption of gender mainstreaming strategies has become an increasingly common expectation within countering terrorism and violent extremism policy and programming. Through comparative case study examination of two iterations of a Strengthening Resilience to Violent Extremism programme, this article shows that practitioners are often left struggling to design effective and transformative strategies that can overcome practical and conceptual barriers. This is due to several intersecting and compounding elements, including institutional conceptual limitations around gender and gender equality in the security context, a weak evidence base on how and why gender plays a role in violent extremism, and a lack of effective feminist knowledge transfer and co-creation processes between academic and practitioner researchers.
{"title":"Finding the right mix: re-evaluating the road to gender-equality in countering violent extremism programming","authors":"Jessica White","doi":"10.1080/17539153.2022.2036423","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17539153.2022.2036423","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The adoption of gender mainstreaming strategies has become an increasingly common expectation within countering terrorism and violent extremism policy and programming. Through comparative case study examination of two iterations of a Strengthening Resilience to Violent Extremism programme, this article shows that practitioners are often left struggling to design effective and transformative strategies that can overcome practical and conceptual barriers. This is due to several intersecting and compounding elements, including institutional conceptual limitations around gender and gender equality in the security context, a weak evidence base on how and why gender plays a role in violent extremism, and a lack of effective feminist knowledge transfer and co-creation processes between academic and practitioner researchers.","PeriodicalId":46483,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies on Terrorism","volume":"16 1","pages":"585 - 609"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2022-02-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80914814","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-04DOI: 10.1080/17539153.2021.2013450
J. Downing, Sarah F. Gerwens, Richard Dron
ABSTRACT Both vernacular security studies and critical terrorism studies (CTS) offer constructivist analyses of security couched in understandings of security speak. However, neither adequately take account of the ways in which social media presents important opportunities for greater insight into how terrorism is constructed. This study analyses tweets posted after the 2017 Manchester bombing, exploring how jihadist terror attacks are constructed on social media. To do this, we combine social network analysis, as a sampling method, with discourse analysis. The study finds that Twitter provides a platform for diverse terrorism discourses to be expressed and contested. This indicates a literate lay audience within post-attack narratives, self-aware of dominant social constructions of “Muslim terrorism”. Indeed, it suggests an audience that, on Twitter, is hardly only audience but seeks to speak security itself. Insights are gleaned with respect to depicting, defending, and critiquing Muslims, constructing what it means to be a terrorist, portrayals of victimhood, and how terror events feed into broader critiques of “political correctness” and “liberal” politics. Therefore, the analysis also provides further insights into the portrayal and (self-)positioning of Muslims in the wake of a jihadist attack and nuances accounts of Muslims’ securitisation qua terror.
{"title":"Tweeting terrorism: Vernacular conceptions of Muslims and terror in the wake of the Manchester Bombing on Twitter","authors":"J. Downing, Sarah F. Gerwens, Richard Dron","doi":"10.1080/17539153.2021.2013450","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17539153.2021.2013450","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Both vernacular security studies and critical terrorism studies (CTS) offer constructivist analyses of security couched in understandings of security speak. However, neither adequately take account of the ways in which social media presents important opportunities for greater insight into how terrorism is constructed. This study analyses tweets posted after the 2017 Manchester bombing, exploring how jihadist terror attacks are constructed on social media. To do this, we combine social network analysis, as a sampling method, with discourse analysis. The study finds that Twitter provides a platform for diverse terrorism discourses to be expressed and contested. This indicates a literate lay audience within post-attack narratives, self-aware of dominant social constructions of “Muslim terrorism”. Indeed, it suggests an audience that, on Twitter, is hardly only audience but seeks to speak security itself. Insights are gleaned with respect to depicting, defending, and critiquing Muslims, constructing what it means to be a terrorist, portrayals of victimhood, and how terror events feed into broader critiques of “political correctness” and “liberal” politics. Therefore, the analysis also provides further insights into the portrayal and (self-)positioning of Muslims in the wake of a jihadist attack and nuances accounts of Muslims’ securitisation qua terror.","PeriodicalId":46483,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies on Terrorism","volume":"51 1","pages":"239 - 266"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2022-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84217154","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17539153.2021.2017484
L. Jarvis
ABSTRACT Recent years have witnessed increasing academic, media, and political attention to the threat of far-right terrorism. In this article, I argue that scholarship on this threat has suffered from two limitations, each with antecedents in terrorism research more broadly. First, is an essentialist approach to this phenomenon as an extra-discursive object of knowledge to be defined, explained, catalogued, risk assessed, and (ultimately) resolved. Second, is a temptation to emphasise, even accentuate, the scale of this threat. These limitations are evident, I argue, within scholarship motivated by a problem-solving aspiration for policy relevance. They are evident too, though, within critical interventions in which a focus on far-right terrorism is seen as an important corrective to established biases and blind spots within (counter-)terrorism research and practice. In response, I argue for an approach rooted in the problematisation and desecuritisation of the far-right threat. This, I suggest, facilitates important new reflection on the far-right’s production within and beyond terrorism research, as well as on the purposes and politics of critique therein.
{"title":"Critical terrorism studies and the far-right: beyond problems and solutions?","authors":"L. Jarvis","doi":"10.1080/17539153.2021.2017484","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17539153.2021.2017484","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Recent years have witnessed increasing academic, media, and political attention to the threat of far-right terrorism. In this article, I argue that scholarship on this threat has suffered from two limitations, each with antecedents in terrorism research more broadly. First, is an essentialist approach to this phenomenon as an extra-discursive object of knowledge to be defined, explained, catalogued, risk assessed, and (ultimately) resolved. Second, is a temptation to emphasise, even accentuate, the scale of this threat. These limitations are evident, I argue, within scholarship motivated by a problem-solving aspiration for policy relevance. They are evident too, though, within critical interventions in which a focus on far-right terrorism is seen as an important corrective to established biases and blind spots within (counter-)terrorism research and practice. In response, I argue for an approach rooted in the problematisation and desecuritisation of the far-right threat. This, I suggest, facilitates important new reflection on the far-right’s production within and beyond terrorism research, as well as on the purposes and politics of critique therein.","PeriodicalId":46483,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies on Terrorism","volume":"137 1","pages":"13 - 37"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76185736","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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