Counterterrorism and race
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Counterterrorism and race Amal Abu‑Bakare1
© Springer Nature Limited 2020
Abstract This article examines the field of counterterrorism and race in the context of international relations (IR) scholarship. The article identifies noteworthy texts for examining situated knowledge and individual experiences of counterterrorism as a form of IR-relevant inquiry. Drawing on the fields of postcolonialism, sociology, and legal and terrorism studies, this paper identifies the real-world challenges that academics of counterterrorism and race are responding to, the analytical frameworks they utilise, and the key questions they collectively pose for IR. The article finishes by presenting the problem of how to reconcile two understandings of race: one, upheld by those with state-endorsed counterterrorism knowledge with more academic understandings of race, and another disconnected from a wider politics and submerged in colonial/imperial histories. Keywords Race · Counterterrorism · Postcolonialism · Coloniality · Imperialism · Racism
Introduction The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the “emergency situation” in which we live is the rule. We must arrive at a concept of history which corresponds to this–Walter Benjamin (1974) When discussing the global effort to counterterrorism as a feature of international politics, there are few comments that ring truer than Walter Benjamin’s. In fact, replacing his very usage of the word ‘history’ with ‘counterterrorism’, and arguing that individuals must arrive at a concept of counterterrorism which corresponds to the tradition of the oppressed, sets the stage for an important conversation that this article seeks to extend. At its centre lies the provocation that the politics * Amal Abu‑Bakare [email protected] 1
Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University, Rm: 0.10, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Wales SY23 3FE, UK Vol.:(0123456789)
International Politics Reviews
of counterterrorism in the Global North demonstrates international relations’ (IR) underpinnings in systems of power structured by histories of racial ordering. The purpose of this article is to offer a starting point for IR scholars entering the field for counterterrorism and race. This state of the field canvases an extremely broad and interdisciplinary literature, inclusive of postcolonial, sociological, and legal studies as well as literature critiquing public policy, highlighting activism, and evaluating critical and orthodox terrorism thought. In order to illuminate significant controversies, while also presenting innovative perspectives that emphasise the significance of situated knowledge and individual experiences of counterterrorism to IR inquiry, this article specifically engages with developing issues and trends in the study of counterterrorism and race. The definition of race that prevails in this article is one that broadly acknowledges race as the hierarchical adjudication of human competencies through the categorising and essentialising of group attributes (Shilliam 2016). The breadth
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