Ir/rationality: Radicalisation, ‘Black Extremism’ and Prevent Tragedies

This chapter examines the racialisation and gendering of rationality further. It begins by looking at different conceptualisations of rationality, including ‘bounded’ and ‘think’ rationality. It then turns to the the decolonialism literature, noting that as much as social scientists work to approach rationality from a new perspective, it is impossible to erase the gendered, racialised, and heteronormative expectations behind it. Thus, when Terrorism Studies, and notably Critical Terrorism Studies, attempt to rescue ‘terrorist’ actors from earlier claims of irrationality, problems still remain. It still presumes rationality exists and, by not dealing with the problematic discourses behind rationality claims, these discourses are inadvertently reapplied. The chapter then turns to making an important claim that irrationality and radicalisation are synonymous. It looks then at the discourses of radicalisation in counter-terrorism, particularly in two different cases of Prevent Tragedies and the blind spot towards white extremism in the US.