“9/11 is alive and well” or how critical terrorism studies has sustained the 9/11 narrative

ABSTRACT

This article argues that despite engaging in a powerful critique of the construction of the attacks of 11 September 2001 (or “9/11”) as temporal break, critical terrorism scholars have sustained and reproduced this same construction of “9/11”. Through a systematic analysis of the research articles published in Critical Studies on Terrorism, this article illustrates how critical scholars have overall failed to extricate themselves from this dominant narrative, as they inhabit the same visual, emotional and professional landscape as those they critique. After examining how CTS has reproduced but also renegotiated this narrative, the article concludes with what Michel Foucault would describe as an “effective history” of the attacks – in this case, a personal narrative of how the attacks did not constitute a moment of personal rupture but nonetheless later became a backdrop to justify my scholarship and career. It ends with a renewal of Maya Zeyfuss’ call to forget “9/11”.

KEYWORDS:

• “9/11”
• temporal rupture
• chronologies
• narrative
• auto-ethnography

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Lee Jarvis, William Rowlandson, Luca Mavelli, and the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on earlier versions of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Jarvis (2008) points out that “9/11” was not only one of temporal discontinuity but also one of temporal linearity (since America was once again being called up to defend world order) and timelessness (in the endless battle of good versus evil). However, as he illustrates, the presentation of “9/11” as a temporal break was and remains the dominant narrative.

2. Narrative here is understood as “the primary way by which human experience it made meaningful” (Polkinghorne in Wibben 2011, 43). Importantly, as Wibben (2011, 43) argues, “[n]arratives both enable and limit representation – and representation shapes our world and what is possible within it. Narratives, therefore, are profoundly political.”

3. http://www.interieur.gouv.fr/Archives/Archives-ministre-de-l-interieur/Archives-Manuel-Valls-mai-2012-avril-2014/Interventions-du-Ministre/Reforme-du-renseignement.

4. http://www.barbadosparliament.com/uploads/document/ddfd976f0200ee092a9ad8149798f134.pdf .

5. http://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/18/politics/donald-trump-9-11-7-11-mix-buffalo/.

6. http://www.people-press.org/2016/09/07/15-years-after-911-a-sharp-partisan-divide-on-ability-of-terrorists-to-strike-u-s/.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Harmonie Toros

Harmonie Toros is Senior Lecturer in International Conflict Analysis at the University of Kent, UK. She has been researching the potential for negotiations and dialogue with non-state armed groups for 10 years (Terrorism, Talking and Transformation: A Critical Approach Routledge, 2012). She is an editor of this journal and, in stark contrast, a member of Global Research Network of the United Nations Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate.