Security, subjectivity and space in postcolonial Europe: Muslims in the diaspora

Abstract

In this article, we call into question the assumptions that undergird conceptions of boundary, territory, community and ethno-cultural belonging in the constitution of European security. Both the term ‘human security’ as defined by development and human rights scholars and ‘securitisation’ as conceptualised by critical security studies concern the socio-psychological aspects of security. Yet, few attempts have been made to seriously discuss the psychological effects of securitisation on subjectivity and space. There is, as we will argue, a tendency in much literature to use concepts of ‘existential security’, ‘fear’, ‘needs’ and the ‘politics of belonging’ – obviously connected to the human mind and individual emotionality – without much space being devoted to the investigation of these concepts in terms of socio-psychological processes. We intend to fill this gap by discussing security and securitisation in terms of the psychology of subjectivity and space among young Muslims in Europe. Our principal argument is that through openness to the political psychology of subjectivity and space, and the (de)securitisation of both, we are able to develop more adequate maps of the European experience of danger and opportunity.

Keywords:

• political psychology
• securitisation
• postcolonial Europe
• Muslim
• diaspora

Notes

1. In the early 1990s, for instance, when the local authorities refused to permit the opening of another Islamic primary school, the Islamic Foundation in London took the issue to the European Court of Human Rights. Hence, an increasing number of Muslim associations make use of the European level, establishing umbrella organisations to coordinate their activities and pursue a Europewide agenda (Kastoryano 1996, cf. Soysal 2000).

2. A radicalisation process is defined as the development of an individual undergoes towards a polarisation of any given viewpoint. Here it refers to a religious radicalisation process, involving an increasing degree of exclusion in the interpretation of religious ideas, thus adopting an extremist belief system and the willingness to use, support or facilitate violence and fear to effecting changes in society. Radicalisation as such does not, however, necessarily result in terrorism and the use of violence (see Precht 2007).

3. Not much detail was provided about this survey and it is probably wise to remain sceptical about the numbers.