The entanglement of Jihad, political violence, and media has determined the lives of Muslims in Europe and the US over the past 20 years. This book unravels the nexus of these elements to critically examine how their conjunction is perpetuated, reproduced, or disputed. In 16 case studies, the contributors critically reflect on the identification of jihad with political violence, address the academic, legal, political and broader public production of knowledge on this topic, examine the aesthetic formations involved in the mediation and reaffirmation of this narrow understanding, explore the experiential worlds of people whose ideas and actions are labelled as and affected by notions of violent jihad, and illuminate the institutional and media contexts (e.g. of archives) in which an entanglement of jihad and political violence takes effect, with profound consequences. This volume decentres dominant discourses on so-called jihadist actors and deradicalization contexts to offer more nuanced understandings of the political and socio-cultural contexts.

About the Author
Simone Pfeifer is a postdoctoral researcher at the Research Training Group anschliesen-ausschliesen: Cultural Dynamics Beyond Globalized Networks at the University of Cologne. She is a social and cultural anthropologist with a focus on visual, digital and media anthropology. Her research interests include transnational migration and mobility in postmigrant contexts, political violence, religion, and artistic practices, and ethics in (digital) ethnographic research. Her recent publications include Social Media im transnationalen Alltag (2020, transcript), the co-edited volume Jihadi Audiovisuality and its Entanglements: Meanings, Aesthetics, Appropriations (Edinburgh University Press, 2020) with Christoph Gunther, and the co-edited special section Dark Ethnographies? (ZfE 2021: 146).


Book Information
ISBN 9781399523806
Author Simone Pfeifer
Format Paperback
Page Count 448
Imprint Edinburgh University Press
Publisher Edinburgh University Press