Framing frictions: frame analysis and Al-Shabaab’s mobilisation strategies in Kenya

ABSTRACT

In the last decade, while suffering a dramatic escalation of terrorist attacks by Al-Shabaab, Kenya has become a major source of recruits for the Somali-based organisation. Relying on analytical tools from the research on social movements, this article investigates terrorist strategies of mobilisation in the country, using frame analysis to explore the imagery promoted by terrorist propaganda to achieve mobilisation of potential supporters. The article shows how, rather than merely reproducing a global radical religious ideology transcending local politics, Al-Shabaab capitalises on historical fractures and conflictual dynamics in Kenya, forging interpretative orientations that draw on more “profane” segments of local narratives, experiences and values to gain resonance among targeted audiences. Such findings have considerable implications, contributing to de-exceptionalising Islamist terrorism in East Africa and pointing to the need of more context-sensitive counter-terrorism measures dealing with the sources of instability that shape a socio-political terrain on which the terrorist message takes root.

KEYWORDS:

• Frame analysis
• social movements
• Al-Shabaab
• terrorist propaganda
• Kenya
• counter-terrorism

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Dr Andrew Mumford and Dr Louise Kettle for their useful comments on this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The term “social movement entrepreneurs” is used according to its common usage in the literature on social movements, denoting “people who exhibit strategic initiative in spreading the word about their cause and promoting its message” (Noakes and Johnston 2005, 7).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Simone Papale

Simone Papale is a PhD candidate at the School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham, focusing on contemporary warfare and the emergence of non-state political violence.