Disconnection and resistance: anti-terrorism and citizenship in the UK

Abstract

The corroding impacts of anti-terrorism measures on citizenship have been much discussed in recent years. Drawing on qualitative research from the UK, this article argues that citizens do indeed frequently feel that aspects of citizenship – such as rights, duties, identity claims and the ability to participate in the public sphere – have been significantly dampened by developments in this policy area. At the same time, however, participants in our research also articulated a number of strategies through which they or others have sought to resist the logics, exercise and impacts of anti-terrorism powers. These included voicing explicit opposition to particular measures, resisting ‘outsider’ or ‘victim’ subject positions, and a refusal to withdraw from established forms of political engagement. Whilst such resistance should not be overstated, we argue that these strategies emphasise the co-constitutive rather than linear relationship between public policy and citizenship. Anti-terrorism powers do indeed impact upon citizenship claims, for instance in the curtailment of formal rights. Equally, the everyday, lived, experiences and practices of citizenship contribute to, and help shape, the perceptions and understandings of anti-terrorism policy from within the citizenry

Keywords::

• anti-terrorism
• citizenship
• resistance
• insecurity
• discrimination
• security

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge and thank the ESRC for funding the research on which this article draws (RES 000-22-3765). We are also deeply grateful to all those who participated within or contributed to the organisation of, the focus groups for this project. Finally, we thank the editors and two anonymous referees for their helpful suggestions on improving this article. The usual disclaimers apply.

Notes

^1. Further information on the project and its findings is available via the following website: http://www.esrc.ac.uk/my-esrc/grants/RES-000-22-3765/read.

^2. This need for alternative ways of thinking about and conducting counter-terrorism is a consistent theme within related recent efforts to forge a ‘critical terrorism studies’ research programme. See, for example, Jarvis (2009) and Jackson et al. (2009, 2011).

^3. Participants in each focus group were given an information sheet part way through the session summarising major and controversial anti-terrorism measures enacted within the UK since 2000.

^4. The full data set is available through the UK data archive at http://www.data-archive.ac.uk under the following study number and title: SN 7045 Anti-Terrorism, Citizenship and Security in the United Kingdom, 2010.

^5. Much of the qualitative research into Muslim and other minorities' responses to anti-terrorism cited here is UK focused. Yet there is research which examines similar themes in other contexts. For examples, see Maira (2009) for the USA, and Aly and Green (2010) for Australia.