Embodied militarism and the process of disengagement from foreign fighter networks

ABSTRACT

With the collapse of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, international governments are scrambling to understand the process of leaving violent networks as large numbers of former fighters return to their home countries. Studies of foreign fighters have tended to emphasize the importance of ideology or trans-national identity in explaining the desire to travel across borders to participate in war. This paper looks to move beyond these accounts and investigates how embodied attachments to militarism shapes foreign fighters enduring involvement in jihadi networks. Feminist studies of militarism and armed violence have emphasized the importance of gendered forms of attachment and desire in making war possible. While this research has paid increasing attention to attachment and embodiment in shaping military personnel’s identities, far less attention has been paid to those involved in foreign fighter networks. Based on life-history research with three generations of former foreign fighters from Java (Afghanistan 1980s, Philippines 2000s, Syria/Iraq 2014-ongoing) this paper explores the complex and contradictory forms of attachment that shape their attempted transition to in civilian life. Focusing on the embodied practices of these former fighters, the article highlights the role of structural factors play in recrafting attachment and belonging.

KEYWORDS:

• Foreign fighters
• masculinities
• violent extremism
• embodiment
• Indonesia

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the assistance of The Institute for International Peace Building (Yayasan Prasasti Perdamaian) in Jakarta in this project. We would also like to thank the generous contributions of our research participants who gave us their time and shared their stories.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The terminology of violent extremism is deeply contested in the literature. Common accounts tend to suggest that violent extremism entails a belief set which condones violence through the support of views far outside those accepted in mainstream society (Borum 2011). This account is not sufficient for a feminist perspective on militarism which challenges the mainstream views in society that condone violence. Further, the lack of clarity provided by the term in lumping together disparate groups (such as nationalists, leftists, white supremacists, jihadi organizations and others) means that it can lead to a false sense of connections between different organizations (Antúnez and Tellidis 2013). Despite having reservations about the terminologies use, it will be employed in this paper as it has come to be the most prominent description of Indonesian foreign fighter networks.

2. There is a rich scholarship on different approaches to leaving armed networks. This paper focuses directly on disengagement as one of the most prominent, see Bjorgo and Horgan’s (2008) edited volume for more detail of these debates.

3. Participants used multiple differing terminologies to describe their involvement in the armed network. Identifications such as foreign fighter, jihadi or mujahedeen were all common. Possibly the most common identification which participants used was activist. The designation of activist seems to capture the multiple roles that the participants understood across their time in the network, ranging from strictly religious performances, charity work, financial support, or passive support for fighters, to active involvement such as travelling as foreign fighters, training militants and conducting terrorist attacks. While the literature on CVE has a tendency to ring-fence terrorist and foreign fighter activity under the category of extremism for the participants we interviewed made no such distinction.

4. Praying and being seen to pray is very important for network members who recounted the doctrine of ‘praying like a monk at night and fighting like a lion during the day.’