This article critically examines how the problem of “homegrown terrorism” is represented in a content analysis of news media, academic scholarship, and grey literature in Canada between 2013 and 2016. Findings centred around five primary themes: (1) homegrown terrorism is new to Canada and is growing in scope; (2) it represents a significant threat to national security; (3) it is a problem that tends to manifest in, and transform, “normal” youth; (4) it lacks any identifiable causes; and (5) it has culminated in a new regime of persistent threat and uncertainty in Canada. Based on the saturation of these themes, I argue that a narrative template has formed and proliferated across media, academic, and grey literatures, acting as a framework for understanding the homegrown terrorism problem’s key features that are legitimated by the repeated presence of a small group of expert and official sources. The second part of this article interrogates this conceptualization, including the criteria used in selecting cases and the underlying operation of racialized, orientalist discourses on Canadian Muslims that work to distinguish homegrown terrorism from other types of political violence in the country and to render it antithetical to Canadian values. This article provides a conceptual snapshot of homegrown terrorism around the time of highly publicized events (e.g., the 2014 Parliament Hill attack) that continue to impact Canadian politics and society. This analysis offers insight as ideas of radicalization and violent extremism gain further prominence in realms of public policy, service and program delivery, and multiple political contexts.
Our paper examines the latest frontier of the “War on Terror,” countering violent extremism (CVE), non-coercive approaches that aim to prevent “radicalization” that may lead to “violent extremism” or terrorism. We look at the recent implementation of CVE in Québec’s education sector. Based on an analysis of key policy documents and interviews with CVE practitioners, we find that: (1) teachers are responsibilized to safeguard society from the risk of terrorism through being expected to “know the signs” of radicalization and to build “resilience,” (2) students are responsibilized as agents who can influence their peers against violent extremist messaging and toward “prosocial” behaviour, and (3) elements of school curriculum are responsibilized, especially social studies education, to provide students with “critical thinking” skills thought to be lacking among those at risk of radicalization. We highlight the inherent contradictions in CVE, which, in Québec, claims to foster pluralism and inclusivity to combat Islamophobia, but as a modality of the “War on Terror” also targets and stigmatizes Muslim communities. Critical discussion of CVE’s social implications are needed to initiate critical dialogue in Canada over the impact of CVE in social services provision and the risk of securitizing the education sector in Québec.
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