This paper is intended to explore modes of inquiry into culture and public discourse. To this end, the first part of the paper is devoted to situating discourses and practices within a broad notion of culture, a notion which goes beyond the cultural turn and focuses on culture in action, as well as on the dynamic dialogue between structure and action. In order to advance in a methodological proposal, the paper examines four different studies that propose differentiated strategies for making the concept of culture operational.
Victims have become a topic of scholarly debate in conflict studies, especially regarding the impact of their activism on the evolution and termination of violence. Victims of terrorism are now enlisted within counter-terrorism, given their moral authority as spokespeople for counter-narratives and de-escalation. Our research explores how Spanish terrorism victims’ associations have evolved across eras of political violence and how they mediate the translation of international War on Terror discourses into Spanish counter-terrorism. We offer a topography of how the War on Terror has opened a ‘social front’ in Spanish counter-terrorism, with Spanish political elites prominently employing the victims’ associations to this end. Contemporary terrorism discourses are read back onto the memory of ETA, with victims’ associations assisting the equation of ETA with al-Qaeda and ISIS. Collective memory of the defeat of ETA has also contributed the veneer of ‘lessons learned’ to contemporary counter-terrorism measures. Our research explores the fluidity of terrorism-memory and the importation of global terrorism discourses into Spanish politics, relying upon interviews with key stakeholders in victims’ associations, local politics, and the research director of the new Victims of Terrorism Memorial Centre in Vitoria.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.