“Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom”: Jihadist Tactical Technical Communication and the Everyday Practice of Cooking

ABSTRACT

Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Jihadist organizations such as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) have focused increasingly on motivating unaffiliated individuals in the United States and Western countries to carry out lone-wolf attacks in their home countries. To this end, many Jihadist organizations produce what is known as tactical technical communication. Jihadist tactical technical communication persuades individuals to act by creating identification between individuals and audiences, and by associating terrorist tactics with everyday practices such as cooking.

KEYWORDS:

• Identification
• Jihadism
• rhetoric
• tactics
• technical communication

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hilary A. Sarat-St. Peter

Hilary A. Sarat-St. Peter is an assistant professor of professional and technical writing in the English department at Columbia College Chicago. Her research interests include user-centered technical communication, international/intercultural professional communication, and global socioeconomic development. Much of her research examines how people make use of the resources in their environment, and how texts expand or contract users’ capabilities, choices and freedoms. Her most recent scholarly project relates these themes to Jihadist tactical technical communication, focusing on online terrorism manuals that spread illicit “know-how” about bomb-making and other topics while devaluing users’ choices and freedoms.