Reimaging Subjugated Voice in Africa: A Battle for Hearts and Minds in Terrorism Studies

Samwel Oando () and Mohammed Ilyas
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Samwel Oando: Institute of the Study of African Realities (ISAR), The Africa International University, Karen-Dagoreti Road, P.O. Box 24686, Nairobi 00502, Kenya
Mohammed Ilyas: Department of Criminology, University of Derby, Derby DE1 1DZ, UK

Social Sciences, 2024, vol. 13, issue 6, 1-17

Abstract: A rare consensus points to the question of normativity, with an inclination towards the Eurocentric Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, which seems to have been central to Critical Terrorism Studies (CTS). Given the universality of knowledge exerting pressure on scholars to conform with traditional theoretical perspectives, terrorism studies pose inequality from Eurocentricity emerging in “the battle for hearts and minds” research. Some of these studies fall to the allure of connivance with the progressively “authoritarian demands of Western, liberal state and media practice”. Consequently, terrorism research risks being dominated by ethical and logical blindness within established research formations. In Africa, for example, some CTS scholars are subdued to cynically use their Africanity to authenticate the neo-colonial and neo-liberal agenda in terrorism research. This article explores the reimaging of subjugated knowledge through decolonisation of methods in CTS. Rooting for cognitive justice and adequate space for alternative knowledge to imperial science, the article contests the battle for Africa’s hearts and minds as a failed process that needs transformation. Consequently, this work is a contribution to epistemological debate between the global North and South, and the subsequent theoretical contestations in CTS. We argue for hybridity by re-constructing alternative frameworks of knowledge production.

Keywords: decolonisation; terrorism studies; Critical Terrorism Studies; Africanity; subjugated knowledge; terrorism; global North; global South; war on terror; colonialism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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