XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 15-21, 2018)

974

Terrorism, Risk and Resilience

TG04 Sociology of Risk and Uncertainty (host committee)

Language: English

The 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington led to historically unprecedented institutional waves of securitisation in Western nations. These waves have spanned across multiple domains - military, law, policing, surveillance, immigration - and impacted heavily in terms of human casualties, civil rights and liberties and freedom of movement. Within this, tools, techniques and discourses of risk have been axial. Risk has been mobilised, inter alia, at the level of representation, communication, labelling and intervention. Post the discrediting of military and domestic security policies in the United States and the UK which were formally designed to limit the terrorist risk - amongst them the failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the PATRIOT Act - the term 'resilience' appeared with increasing frequency in counter terrorism and security policies. Appeals to build resilience against terrorism are multi-layered and are directed at different levels: individual, community, nation. Yet the value of resilience in these contexts remains questionable. In activating citizens and communities to be vigilant and to develop defences against terrorism, the State divests itself from various forms of responsibility for security and safety. This stream invites scholars, researchers and practitioners engaging with policies and practices of risk and resilience developed to counter terrorism, violent extremism and radicalisation. In particular, abstracts are solicited from academics involved in critically scrutinising the deployment of risk and resilience in the social construction, regulation and management of terrorism