Dangerous or political? Kenyan youth negotiating political agency in the age of ‘new terrorism’

This article examines how the online Kenyan press constructs ‘radicalization’ and how youth challenge these constructions. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) through NVivo, the author analyzed two corpora, one of news texts and the second composed of transcripts from two focus group discussions conducted with youth in Mombasa. The analysis shows the media persistently depoliticize youth by constructing them as a dangerous ‘Other’. In contrast, youth challenge this image by claiming political agency through (re)defining their identities using language and material practices. The construction of actors in discourses of radicalization highlights a specific understanding of radicalism and violence, and impacts framing of the Preventing/Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) agenda. The author concludes by showing the implications of the different constructions of youth identities and how youth legitimately enact agency within these bounds. This article raises crucial questions on the practices of meaning-making by individuals and media actors.