'As a woman…'; 'As a Muslim…': Subjects, positions and counter-terrorism powers in the United Kingdom. (May 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Jarvis, Lee; Lister, Michael
• Is Part Of: Critical social policy. Volume 37:Number 2(2017)
• Page Start: 245
• Page End: 267
• Publication Date: 2017-05
• Subjects: counter-terrorism -- terrorism -- identity -- subjectivity -- religion -- ethnicity -- gender; Welfare economics -- Periodicals; Socialism -- Great Britain -- Periodicals; Great Britain -- Social policy -- 1979- -- Periodicals; 361.94105
• DOI: 10.1177/0261018316684506
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0261-0183

Abstract

This article presents findings from original focus group research on the importance of identity claims within public understandings of counter-terrorism across the UK. Following a review of existing literature on the terrorism/counter-terrorism/identity nexus, the article introduces four prominent subject positions inhabited within public articulations of counter-terrorism powers: the 'Muslim', the 'target', the 'woman' and the 'unaffected'. Positions such as these, we argue, both enable and inhibit particular normative, political and anecdotal claims about counter-terrorism frameworks and their impact upon the body politic. This, we suggest, is demonstrative of the co-constitutive role between counter-terrorism and identity claims. Thus, on the one hand, counter-terrorism initiatives work to position individuals socially, politically and culturally: (re)producing various religious, ethnic and other identities. Yet, at the same time, specific subject positions are integral to the articulation of people's attitudes toward developments in counter-terrorism. The article concludes by thinking through some of the implications of this, including for resistance toward securitising moves and for citizenship more generally.