From ISIS to (US) Insurrection: Exploring the Sociology of Knowledge on Extremism and Political Violence through Struggles for Expert Authority

从伊斯兰国到（美国）叛乱：通过专家权威的斗争探索极端主义和政治暴力的知识社会学

• 批准号: ES/Y008324/1
• 负责人: Dylan Marshall
• 金额: $ 13.05万
• 依托单位: Aberystwyth University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FY008324%2F1
• 关键词: ISIS; US; Insurrection; Exploring; Sociology

As major recent events, from Brexit to COVID-19 have revealed, the social and political construction of 'experts' and their 'expert knowledge' is pivotal in shaping outcomes and ways of understanding global challenges. However, the centrality of the contested nature of expertise that these events brought to the fore have also been playing out in the study of 'terrorism'. The Islamic State group's (IS) declaration of a 'caliphate' in 2014 led to a gold rush to provide expertise on the group. It attracted a plethora of different fields, institutions, and individuals producing knowledge and claiming authority on IS (academia, policy institutions, private sector analysts, among many others). However, unlike many spaces of specialised knowledge (e.g., medicine), which have highly regulated fields to demarcate who the 'experts' are (and crucially, are not), the study of 'terrorism', 'radicalisation' and 'counterterrorism' does not maintain such institutionalised regulation. My research has revealed that there is no consistency amongst IS knowledge producers and elite consumers (e.g., government, media) as to who is an 'expert' and what attributes constitute expert authority. This subsequent competition for recognition as an 'expert' and its 'winners' in-turn shapes dominant knowledge on how the group is understood and should be responded to.Consequently, my research sociologically analyses this period and the conditions of terrorism expertise after 2014. This began with mapping the landscape of IS experts, proceeding to trace how deep historical debates over knowledge on Islam, the Middle East and political violence have shaped contemporary dynamics amongst expertise and their state, media, and wider consumers. This uncovered a broad spectrum of heavily disputed sources of authority that aspiring experts draw upon. Breaking new ground in the study of terrorism, it showed how this 'marketplace of expertise' produces diverse strategies pursued by experts to produce or maintain their authority, impacting whose expertise is utilised by practitioners, policy makers and the media. This research also explored how both physical and virtual spaces (such as conferences and Twitter) also shape the production and circulation of knowledge on IS, the membership of the expert community, and their relations amongst each other and with consumers.This fellowship's further research aims to extend this analysis of the terrorism 'expert marketplace' from the IS-era to account for the transition towards new terrorism threats in the Anglo-American context (far right). I will explore the processes by which another wave of aspiring experts emerged fulfil a demand to understand the far right, and how established expertise have responded to a changing landscape of consumer demands amid shifting political conditions shaping the framing of this threat. By introducing new findings into my existing analysis and preparing multiple publications based on this collective research, this fellowship will develop and communicate new insights into how the West understands contemporary political violence. As an analysis of expertise within a major, contentious global challenge, it further contributes towards understanding ongoing change in the function and politics of expertise at-large.

从英国脱欧到新冠肺炎 (COVID-19) 等近期重大事件表明，“专家”的社会和政治建构及其“专业知识”对于塑造结果和理解全球挑战的方式至关重要。然而，这些事件所带来的专业知识争议性的中心地位也在“恐怖主义”研究中得到体现。伊斯兰国组织 (IS) 于 2014 年宣布建立“哈里发国”，引发了为该组织提供专业知识的淘金热。它吸引了众多不同领域、机构和个人（学术界、政策机构、私营部门分析师等）提供知识并声称对信息系统具有权威。然而，与许多专业知识领域（例如医学）不同，这些领域有严格监管的领域来划分谁是“专家”（最重要的是，不是专家），对“恐怖主义”、“激进化”和“反恐”的研究并没有维持这种制度化的监管。我的研究表明，信息系统知识生产者和精英消费者（例如政府、媒体）对于谁是“专家”以及哪些属性构成专家权威并不一致。随后的“专家”及其“获胜者”认可竞争反过来又塑造了关于如何理解该组织以及如何应对该组织的主导知识。因此，我的研究从社会学角度分析了这一时期以及 2014 年之后恐怖主义专业知识的状况。首先绘制了 IS 专家的概况，然后追踪了关于伊斯兰教、中东和政治暴力知识的深刻历史争论如何塑造了专业知识中的当代动态 以及他们的国家、媒体和更广泛的消费者。这揭示了有抱负的专家可以利用的一系列备受争议的权威来源。它在恐怖主义研究中开辟了新天地，展示了这个“专业知识市场”如何产生专家为产生或维持其权威而采取的多样化策略，影响从业者、政策制定者和媒体利用其专业知识。这项研究还探讨了物理和虚拟空间（例如会议和 Twitter）如何影响 IS 知识的生产和流通、专家社区的成员资格以及他们之间以及与消费者之间的关系。该奖学金的进一步研究旨在扩展对 IS 时代恐怖主义“专家市场”的分析，以解释英美背景下向新恐怖主义威胁的转变（最右侧）。我将探讨另一波有抱负的专家出现的过程，以满足了解极右翼的需求，以及在塑造这一威胁框架的政治条件不断变化的情况下，成熟的专业知识如何应对消费者需求的变化。通过将新的发现引入我现有的分析中，并根据这项集体研究准备多份出版物，该奖学金将发展和传达关于西方如何理解当代政治暴力的新见解。作为对重大、有争议的全球挑战中的专业知识的分析，它进一步有助于理解整个专业知识的功能和政治的持续变化。