Radicalization: transforming the body through aesthetic media?

Current understandings of radicalization tend to underscore the cognitive dimension of a radicalizing process. The adoption of radical religious ideology is seen as the first step in a process that might eventually lead to terrorism and violence.

The present article challenges this intellectualist vision of radicalization and suggests that pathways to Muslim militancy could also be apprehended as embodied practices of self-government. Building on three years of ethnographical fieldwork within a militant milieu in Copenhagen, the article looks into how young Muslims govern themselves to become activists, jihadis and martyrs. It suggests that radicalization is increasingly enabled by aesthetic media (jihad- and martyr-videos) which through identification and mimetic practice can enable a transformation of the body and the “body techniques”.

The article can be accessed online (requires password)