The terror of everyday counterterrorism

Abstract

This article looks at the implications of the “domestic/everyday violence” = “war/terrorism” homology for thinking about “domestic/everyday” violence. Particularly, it contends that the normalisation of war/terror discourse in intimate/everyday violence brings with it intimate/everyday counterterror. It suggests that any benefits of naming everyday violence as terror are erased, subsumed or outweighed by the disadvantages of importing counterterrorism to the sphere of the intimate. Beyond the securitisation of the bedroom and the terror of intimate counterterror, this article contends that feminist and queer theorising provide insights about the nature of terror that show intimate terrorism in counterterrorism and make intimate/everyday counterterrorism doubly dangerous. As such, the equation of “everyday/intimate violence” = “war/terrorism” is counterproductive because of its bidirectional co-constitution. While the intimate plays a role in the constitution of war/terrorism, the re-direction of war/terrorism to the intimate/everyday is likely to accentuate the “terror” of intimate violation rather than temper it.

Keywords:

• gender
• domestic violence
• terrorism
• counterterrorism
• epistemology
• sexual violence

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the journal editors for their help on this special section, and Caron Gentry for her careful and critical reading of this and other work. The anonymous reviewers for this special section helped make this piece stronger and clearer. Mistakes remain my own.

Notes

1. For the use of this language, see Abrahamsen (2005).

2. See, for example, the Department of Homeland Security: http://www.dhs.gov/topic/countering-violent-extremism (accessed 17 May 2015); the White House: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/02/18/fact-sheet-white-house-summit-countering-violent-extremism (accessed 17 May 2015); the Department of State: http://www.state.gov/j/ct/cvesummit/index.htm (accessed 17 May 2015); USAID: http://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1870/VEI_Policy_Final.pdf (accessed 17 May 2015); and the Department of Defense: http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=128249 (accessed 17 May 2015, referring to Russia).

3. See for example, Livingstone (1990, 27).

4. The term “civilizational barbarism” is quoting Huntington (1996, 321).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Laura Sjoberg

Laura Sjoberg is Associate Professor of Political Science with a courtesy affiliation in Women’s Studies and Gender Research at the University of Florida. Her work focuses on various aspects of gender and international security, including feminist war theorising, and work on women’s violence in global politics. She is author or editor of 10 books, including, most recently, Beyond Mothers, Monsters, Whores (with Caron Gentry, Zed Books, 2015); Gender, War, and Conflict (Polity, 2014); and Gendering Global Conflict: Towards a Feminist Theory of War (Columbia University Press, 2013). Her research has been published in more than three dozen journals in political science, international relations, gender studies, law and geography. She is currently the home base editor of the International Feminist Journal of Politics and co-editor of International Studies Review.