THE IDEOLOGY OF ISLAMIC TERRORISM: PRACTICES OF SUBJECTIVATION AND FORMATION OF NEGATIVE IDENTITY

Abstract

The paper considers the phenomenon of contemporary Islamic (religious/political) terrorism, as well as the worldview attitudes and the technologies of negative manipulation conducive to inveigling recruits into terrorist subcultures. Concepts of identity and negative identity are examined philosophically and methodologically with a view to assessing their heuristic potential for the study of topical sociocultural problems, such as terrorism, extremism, and fanaticism. Proceeding from Michel Foucault’s definition of practices of subjectivation, the authors subject this idea to philosophical and anthropological scrutiny to specify how it relates to personal self-identification, development of negative identities and personality strategies. The authors’ conclusion is that reducing the agenda and the meanings of extremism and terrorism conceptually, theoretically and phenomenologically to spheres of ideology, politics, and law, and associating extremism and terrorism with primarily crises in spheres of economics and politics impedes discernment of their specific natures.