Narrative in the Study of Victimological Processes in Terrorism and Political Violence: An Initial Exploration

ABSTRACT

Narrative is intimately connected to victimization and radicalization. Trouble, the notion that drives narrative, is often coupled with victimization: the experience of suffering intentional harm. This experience can play a turning point in the stories that radicals construct about their own lives and thus play a role in their pathway to radicalization. In this article, three main themes of narrative will be further explored in relation to victimization and radicalization: identity, emotions, and culture. Central in this article is the discussion on how narrative can contribute to theory and research into victimological processes in radicalization, while offering new means to further develop key constructs.

Notes

1. Marc Sageman, “The Stagnation in Terrorism Research,” Terrorism and Political Violence 26 (2014), pp. 565–580.

2. Tore Bjorgo and John Horgan, Leaving Terrorism Behind: Individual and Collective Disengagement (New York: Routledge, 2008).

3. Mary B. Altier, Christian N. Thoroughgood, and John G. Horgan, “Turning Away from Terrorism: Lessons from Psychology, Sociology, and Criminology,” Journal of Peace Research 51 (2014), pp. 647–661; Anja Dalgaard-Nielsen, “Promoting Exit from Violent Extremism: Themes and Approaches,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 36 (2013), pp. 99–115; John Horgan, Walking Away from Terrorism: Accounts of Disengagement from Radical and Extremist Movements (New York: Routledge, 2009).

4. Sageman, “The Stagnation in Terrorism Research.”

5. See, for example, Clark McCauley, and Sophia Moskalenko, “Some Things We Think We've Learned since 9/11: A Commentary on Marc Sageman's ‘The Stagnation in Terrorism Research,’” Terrorism and Political Violence 26 (2014), pp. 601–606; Alex P. Schmid, “Comments on Marc Sageman's Polemic ‘The Stagnation in Terrorism Research,’” Terrorism and Political Violence 26 (2014), pp. 587–595; Jessica Stern, “Response to Marc Sageman's ‘The Stagnation in Terrorism Research,’” Terrorism and Political Violence 26 (2014), pp. 607–613; Max Taylor, “If I Were You, I Wouldn't Start from Here: Response to Marc Sageman's ‘The Stagnation in Terrorism Research,’” Terrorism and Political Violence 26 (2014), pp. 581–586.

6. Schmid, “Comments on Marc Sageman's Polemic ‘The Stagnation in Terrorism Research.’”

7. Phillip L. Hammack and Andrew Pilecki, “Narrative as a Root Metaphor for Political Psychology,” Political Psychology 33 (2012), pp. 75–103.

8. David V. Canter, Sarangi Sudhanshu, and Donna E. Youngs, “Terrorists' Personal Constructs and Their Roles: A Comparison of the Three Islamic Terrorists,” Legal and Criminological Psychology 19 (2014), pp. 160–178; National Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Countering Violent Extremist Narratives (The Hague: National Coordinator for Counterterrorism, 2010).

9. For example, Catherine Kohler-Riessman, Narrative analysis (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1993).

10. Dan P. McAdams, “The Psychological Self as Actor, Agent, and Author,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 8 (2013), pp. 272–295.

11. Stephen K. Rice, “Emotions and Terrorism Research: A Case for a Social-Psychological Agenda,” Journal of Criminal Justice 37 (2009), pp. 248–255.

12. Philip L. Hammack, “Narrative and the Cultural Psychology of Identity,” Personality and Social Psychology Review 12 (2008), pp. 222–247.

13. Kenneth Burke, The Grammar of Motives (New York: Prentice Hall, 1945).

14. Jerome Bruner, “Life as Narrative,” Social Research 54 (1987), pp. 11–32.

15. Jerome Bruner, Acts of Meaning (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990).

16. Jonathan M. Adler and Dan P. McAdams, “Time, Culture, and Stories of the Self,” Psychological Inquiry: An International Journal for the Advancement of Psychological Theory 18 (2007), p. 97.

17. Dan P. McAdams, “Personal Narratives and the Life Story,” in Oliver P. John, Richard W. Robins and Lawrence A. Pervin, eds., Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research (New York: The Guilford Press, 2008), pp. 242–262.

18. Tilmann Habermas and Verena Diel, “The Emotional Impact of Loss Narratives: Event Severity and Narrative Perspective,” Emotion 10 (2010), pp. 312–323.

19. Dan P. McAdams and Jennifer L. Pals, “A New Big Five: Fundamental Principles for an Integrative Science of Personality,” American Psychologist 61 (2006), pp. 204–217.

20. Antony Pemberton, “Terrorism, Forgiveness and Restorative Justice,” Oñati Socio-Legal Series 3 (2014), pp. 369–389.

21. The classic text in narrative criminology in general is Shadd Maruna, Making Good: How Ex-Convicts Reform and Rebuild Their Lives (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2001). See for instance Clark McCauley, and Sophia Moskalenko, Friction. How Radicalization Happens to Them and Us (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) for understanding of the role of experiences of victimization in political violence.

22. Maruna, Making Good.

23. McAdams, “The Psychological Self as Actor, Agent, and Author.”

24. John M. Digman, “Personality Structure: The Emergence of the Five Factor Model,” Annual Review of Psychology 41 (1990), pp. 417–440.

25. Robert A. Emmons, The Psychology of Ultimate Concerns: Motivation and Spirituality in Personality (New York: Guilford Press, 1999).

26. McAdams and Pals, “A New Big Five,” p. 209.

27. Dan P. McAdams and Kate C. McLean, “Narrative Identity,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 22 (2013), p. 233.

28. McAdams and McLean, “Narrative Identity.”

29. Dan P. McAdams, The Stories We Live By. Personal Myths and the Making of the Self (New York: The Guilford Press, 1993).

30. Crystal L. Park, “Making Sense of the Meaning Literature: An Integrative Review of Meaning Making and Its Effects on Adjustment to Stressful Life Events,” Psychological Bulletin 136 (2010), pp. 257–301.

31. Michele L. Crossley, “Narrative Psychology, Trauma and the Study of Self/Identity,” Theory and Psychology 10 (2000), pp. 527–546.

32. See for agency and communion David Bakan, The Duality of Human Existence: Isolation and Communion in Western Man (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1966). The recent interest in his work has been rekindled by Abele and Wojziske's branding of agency and communion as The Big Two in social motivation. See Andrea E. Abele and Bogdan Wojciszke, “Agency and Communion from the Perspective of Self versus Others,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 93 (2007), pp. 751–763.

33. For example Arie W. Kruglanski, Michele J. Gelfand, Jocelyn J. Bélanger, Anna Sheveland, Malkanthi Hettiarachchi, and Rohan Gunaratna, “The Psychology of Radicalisation and Deradicalisation: How Significance Quest Impacts Violent Extremism,” Advances in Political Psychology 35 (2014), pp. 69–93.

34. Jonathan Haidt, Jesse Graham, and Craig Joseph, “Above and Below Left-Right: Ideological Narratives and Moral Foundations,” Psychological Inquiry 20 (2009), p. 111.

35. Hammack and Pilecki, “Narrative as a Root Metaphor for Political Psychology.”

36. Clark McCauley and Sophia Moskalenko, Friction: How Radicalization Happens to Them and Us (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

37. See for instance the work by Julian Rappaport, for example, Julian Rappaport, “Community Narratives: Tales of Terror and Joy,” American Journal of Community Psychology 28 (2000), pp. 1–24.

38. See also the work on subcultures in cultural criminology, that is, Jeff Ferrell, “Cultural Criminology,” Annual Review of Sociology 25 (1999), pp. 395–418.

39. Nico H. Frijda, The Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).

40. Dale T. Miller, “Disrespect and the Experience of Injustice,” Annual Review of Psychology 52 (2001), pp. 527–553; Michael McCullough, Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2008); Robert J. Sternberg, “A Duplex Theory of Hate: Development and Application to Terrorism, Massacres, and Genocide,” Review of General Psychology 7 (2003), pp. 299–328; Julie J. Exline and Roy F. Baumeister, “Expressing Forgiveness and Repentance: Benefits and Barriers,” in Michael E. McCullough, Kenneth I. Pargament and Carl E. Thoresen, eds., Forgiveness: Theory, Research and Practice (New York: Guilford, 2000), pp. 133–155; Paul Rozin, Laura Lowery, Sumio Imada, and Jonathan Haidt, “The Cad Triad Hypothesis: A Mapping between Three Moral Emotions (Contemot, Anger, Disgust) and Three Moral Codes (Community, Autonomy, Divinity),” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 76 (1999), pp. 574–586.

41. Kenneth Oatley and Philip N. Johnson-Laird, “Basic Emotions in Social Relationships, Reasoning and Psychological Illnesses,” Emotion Review 3 (2011), pp. 424–433.

42. Keith Oatley, “A Taxonomy of the Emotions of Literary Response and a Theory of Identification in Fictional Narrative,” Poetics 23 (1994), p. 57.

43. Joel Best, Social Problems (New York: Norton and Company, 2008). There has been discussion in the literature about the relationship between frames and narratives. Like Francesca Polletta we understand narrative to be the overarching concept, and frames to be a particular form of narrative, which does not fully encapsulate the identity implications of narrative, and focuses on a particular means of linking action and outcome, that is, individual intent, that does not exhaust the full range of such linkages in narrative). See Francesca Polletta, “It was like a Fever: Narrative and Identity in Social Protest,” Social Problems 45 (1998), pp. 137–159.

44. Joel Best, Social Problems (New York: Norton and Company, 2008).

45. For example Jonathan Haidt, “The New Synthesis in Moral Psychology,” Science 316 (2007), pp. 998–1002.

46. See in different literatures for instance Martha C. Nussbaum, Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame and the Law (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004); George Loewenstein and Deborah A. Small, “The Scarecrow and the Tin Man: The Vicissitudes of Human Sympathy and Caring,” Review of General Psychology 11 (2007), pp. 112–126.

47. Bernard Rimé, “Emotion Elicits the Social Sharing of Emotion: Theory and Empirical Review,” Emotion Review 1 (2009), pp. 60–85.

48. Christian Von Scheve, and Sven Ismer, “Towards a Theory of Collective Emotions,” Emotion Review 5 (2013), pp. 406–413.

49. See for instance Robert D. Benford, and David A. Snow, “Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment,” Annual Review of Sociology 26 (2000), pp. 611–639; Best, Social Problems.

50. Rice, “Emotions and Terrorism Research.”

51. Adam Lankford, “Precis of the Myth of Martyrdom: What Really Drives Suicide Bombers, Rampage Shooters and Other Self-Destructive Killers,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 37 (2014), pp. 351–362.

52. James M. Jasper, “The Emotions of Protest: Affective and Reactive Emotions In and Around Social Movements,” Sociological Forum 13 (1998), pp. 397–424.

53. Scott Atran, Robert Axelrod, and Richard Davis, “Sacred Barriers to Conflict Resolution,” Science 317 (2007), pp. 1039–1040; Eran Halperin, “Emotion, Emotion Regulation, and Conflict Resolution,” Emotion Review 6 (2013), pp. 68–76.

54. George E. Marcus, “Emotions in Politics,” Annual Review of Political Science 3 (2000), pp. 221–250; Haidt, “The New Synthesis in Moral Psychology.”

55. William A. Gamson, Talking Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

56. For instance Christine H. Hansen and Ranald D. Hansen, “Finding the Face in the Crowd: An Anger Superiority Effect,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 54 (1988), pp. 917–924.

57. Vamik Volkan, Bloodlines: From Ethnic Pride to Ethnic Terrorism (New York: Farrar and Strauss, 1997).

58. Much can be learned here from the work of Chantal Mouffe. For instance Chantal Mouffe, The Return of the Political (London: Verso, 1993).

59. See in general Joyce E. Williams, “Secondary Victimisation: Confronting Public Attitudes About Rape,” Victimology 9 (1984), pp. 66–81. For an application to victims of terrorism see David Shichor, “Thinking about Terrorism and Its Victims,” Victims and Offenders 2 (2007), pp. 268–287.

60. Roger Giner-Sorolla and Pascale S. Russell, “Anger, Disgust and Sexual Crimes,” in Miranda A. H. Horvath and Jennifer M. Brown, eds., Rape. Challenging Contemporary Thinking (Cullompton: Willan Publishing, 2009), pp. 46–73.

61. Carolyn L. Hafer and Laurent Begue, “Experimental Research on Just-World Theory. Problems, Developments and Future Challenges,” Psychological Bulletin 131 (2005), pp. 128–167.

62. Masi Noor, Nurit Shnabel, Samer Halabi, and Arie Nadler, “When Suffering Begets Suffering. The Psychology of Competitive Victimhood between Adversarial Groups in Violent Conflicts,” Personality and Social Psychology Review 16 (2012), pp. 351–374.

63. Omar Ashour, “Online De-Radicalisation? Countering Violent Extremist Narratives: Message, Messenger and Media Strategy,” Perspectives on terrorism 4 (2010), pp. 15–19.

64. Kurt Braddock and John Horgan, “Towards a Guide for Constructing and Disseminating Counternarratives to Reduce Support for Terrorism,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 39 (2015), pp. 383–404.

65. See David A. Snow and S. C. Byrd, “Ideology, Framing Processes, and Islamic Terrorist Movements,” Mobilization: An International Quarterly Review 12 (2007), pp. 119–136.

66. Marc Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004).

67. Bakan, The Duality of Human Existence; Abele and Wojciszke “Agency and Communion from the Perspective of Self versus Others.”

68. Hammack and Pilecki, “Narrative as a Root Metaphor for Political Psychology.”

69. National Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Countering Violent Extremist Narratives.

70. Hammack, “Narrative and the Cultural Psychology of Identity”; McAdams, “The Psychological Self as Actor, Agent, and Author.”

71. Hammack, “Narrative and the Cultural Psychology of Identity,” p. 222.

72. Hammack and Pilecki, “Narrative as a Root Metaphor for Political Psychology,” p. 84.

73. Robyn Fivush, “Speaking Silence: The Social Construction of Silence in Autobiographical and Cultural Narratives,” Memory 18 (2010), pp. 88–98.

74. Hammack, “Narrative and the Cultural Psychology of Identity”; McAdams and Pals, “A New Big Five: Fundamental Principles for an Integrative Science of Personality.”

75. Howard S. Becker, Outsiders (New York: The Free Press, 1963).

76. For the use of these terms see Ronnie Janoff-Bulman, Shattered Assumptions: Toward a New Psychology of Trauma (New York: The Free Press, 1992); Michele L. Crossley, Introducing Narrative Psychology (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000).

77. Julian Rappaport, “Narrative Studies, Personal Stories, and Identity Transformation in the Mutual Help Context,” The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 29 (1993), pp. 239–256; Julian Rappaport, “Community Narratives: Tales of Terror and Joy,” American Journal of Community Psychology 28 (2000), pp. 1–24.

78. See for instance Jeff Ferrell, Keith Hayward, and Jock Young, Cultural Criminology: An Invitation (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2008).

79. Philip L. Hammack, Narrative and the Politics of Identity: The Cultural Psychology of Israeli and Palestinian Youth (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

80. Volkan, Bloodlines.

81. Vamik Volkan, “Transgenerational Transmissions and Chosen Traumas: An Aspect of Large-Group Identity,” Group Analysis 34 (2001), pp. 79–97.

82. Noor et al., “When Suffering Begets Suffering.”

83. Karin M. Fierke, “Agents of Death: The Structural Logic of Suicide Terrorism and Martyrdom,” International Theory 1 (2009), pp. 155–184; Karin M. Fierke, Political Self-Sacrifice. Agency, Body and Emotion in International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).

84. See for the application of subcultural theories to terrorism, Mark S. Hamm, “Apocalyptic Violence: The Seduction of Terrorist Subcultures,” Theoretical Criminology 8 (2004), pp. 323–239. For the role of narrative in “anchoring” such subcultures see Lois Presser, “The Narratives of Offenders,” Theoretical Criminology 13 (2009), pp. 177–200.

85. Rappaport, “Narrative Studies, Personal Stories and Identity Transformation in the Mutual Help Context.”