Uzma Jamil – Fitting Canadian Experiences into the Global Context

“The events of 9/11 made my topic of PhD research kind of inevitable in a way, because the political context had such a strong and pervasive influence on the lives of Muslims in North America.”

As a researcher under the ‘Society’ aspect of TSAS, Dr. Uzma Jamil represents an important component in the work of the network, with her focus on critical Muslim studies. “Critical Muslim studies goes beyond naming fixed dichotomies to analyze the complexity of the encounter between Muslim minorities and non-Muslim majorities.” Through a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Toronto, Canada has been the site of her research, with a focus on power relations and identity negotiation among Muslims in the global socio-political context of the war on terror. Her most recent publication addresses how fear and suspicion, which are associated with securitization, shape the lives of South Asian Muslim communities in post-9/11 Montreal, Canada. However, she has recently crossed borders and oceans to take a position as Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the International Centre for Muslim and non-Muslim Understanding at the University of South Australia (UniSA). Her shift to UniSA was due to her interest in the Centre’s focus on critical Muslim studies as a way of conceptualizing the relationship between Muslim and non-Muslim communities globally. “It connects well with my research with Muslim communities in Montreal and Toronto and how they are situated as a minority group within the dual layers of Quebecois and Canadian minority-majority relations.” Over the next three years, Jamil will be writing a monograph on her research, undertaking a research project, and collaborating with her colleagues on research activities through the Centre. She is also co-organizing a symposium on securitization for later in 2013, which will focus on cross-national perspectives from the UK, Australia and Canada.

Why Canada is different

Even though Uzma’s academic background is in political science and international relations, she came to her current field of sociology because she is mostly interested in the social impact of political events. “The events of 9/11 made my topic of PhD research kind of inevitable in a way, because the political context had such a strong and pervasive influence on the lives of Muslims in North America.” She explains that while there has been a lot of discussion of the impact of the war on terror in the US, because the US is directly involved in it, the Canadian context is different and Muslims in Canada are affected in more indirect ways. For example, in the conversations and interactions they have with colleagues at work, in the everyday ways in which they are treated as racialized ‘Others’, in how they raise their children and what they tell them to counter the negative perceptions of Muslims that they are confronted with in school. These interactions and conversations are ordinary in some ways, but collectively, they are all part of the social impact of the war on terror in Canadian society.
Within the TSAS network, Jamil’s interest is in the impact of securitization on Muslim communities in Canada and also more generally how securitization affects minority-majority relations between immigrant and host society groups in Canadian society. She defines securitization as how some communities are framed in such a way that their association with threat, violence and terrorism is considered to be inherent, or pre-determined. “Muslim communities are singled out more often, either because they are supposed to be the threat, to deny the threat, to explain the threat, or to apologize for the threat. In effect, they are always associated with violence and threat and held responsible for it, in one form or another. My critique is to shift the frame out of these available, fixed positions in order to create a more inclusive space and conversation.”
For Jamil, TSAS has the potential to create an inclusive conversation because it brings together people who normally don’t interact with each other as they go about doing their work, whether in government circles or in academia. “The combination of terrorism, security and society, as sites of study in and of themselves, but also as entry points into a broader conversation, is very interesting and exciting. “

Making research policy relevant

One of TSAS’ major goals is to impact policy, and Jamil notes that the challenge may be to actually bridge the gap between policy and academia. She acknowledges that the impact of academic research on policy is contested, but insists that having critical voices in the circle allows for different perspectives – which is vital if policy is to reflect Canadian society as a whole. “Through my work, I can offer a meta-analysis of how policy affects Muslim communities in the long-term, beyond just one case or issue, and to offer a critical lens for conceptualizing securitization.” Now that Jamil works outside of Canada, she sees an opportunity to contribute more on how Canadian experiences fit into the global context.
To reach and engage the public outside of academia as a researcher is something Jamil is interested in developing more while she is at the Centre for Muslim and non-Muslim Understanding. “I have more time and intellectual space to think in non-traditional ways about my work.”
While TSAS is still a fresh initiative, Jamil sees the benefits of being part of the network already. “I have really enjoyed the conversations and connections I’ve developed with colleagues through the TSAS network, and I look forward to more in the future.”

References:
Uzma Jamil and Cécile Rousseau.2012. “Subject Positioning, Fear and Insecurity in South Asian Muslim Communities in the War on Terror Context” Canadian Review of Sociology, 49(4): 370-388.

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Martin Bouchard – Extracting the Social Structure of Extremism

“Trying to model the most obvious and extreme form of terrorist activity, to label it properly – carries both a danger, and a great potential.”

Martin Bouchard is a busy man. While he is currently on paternity leave, he simultaneously arranges conferences, teaches classes and is actively participating in the start-up of TSAS. But this doesn’t faze Martin Bouchard. He is passionate about his work and states that: ‘Even when I’m working, I’m not working’.

Martin Bouchard’s research is specialized in examining the role of social networks in a variety of criminal phenomena, including terrorism. He is an assistant professor in the School of Criminology, at Simon Fraser University, and serves as the Associate Director for Research for TSAS, along with Directors Lorne Dawson and Dan Hiebert. As Associate Director, Martin will be responsible for much of TSAS’ research agenda. While his interests are wide ranging, several of his projects tie neatly into the agenda of TSAS, both in ways of research topics (such as counter terrorism, analyses of terrorism networks), and also by way of collaboration with up-and-coming scholar

Being a Student and Being There for the Students

Recounting his eager days at the University of Montreal, he expresses gratitude that as an undergrad he was able to get an early start in research, and had a generous and talented supervisor in Dr. Pierre Tremblay. During his post doc studies at University of Maryland’s top ranked criminology department, Martin wrote about the social organization of the cannabis cultivation industry under the supervision of Dr. Peter Reuter.

Lured in by the topic of supply and demand of the drug market, Martin found his stimulus. The hook was the consensual drive of drug markets and their social interactions. The subjects within these illicit drug markets are often hidden from view. There are no victims here who call the police and few file reports. It sparked Martin’s interest in developing innovative methods to some of the simple yet unanswered questions in the field, including the size of those markets, and the nature of the law enforcement response to them. Understanding populations and the networks within which they operate, be it in relation to drugs or terrorism, is essential in order to identify the measures and policies that will have the most positive on Canadian society.

High productivity in teaching and publishing hasn’t benefitted Martin solely. Out of his 25 most recent publications, 19 have been co-authored with graduate students. “I make a point of mentoring grad students. I think it is important and a great way to learn — for me as well as for them”.

Mentoring is an important component of TSAS too, and this importance is manifest in the Junior Researchers and the upcoming TSAS Summer Academy 2013, which takes place in Vancouver from July 21-26th, 2013. Martin hopes to continue this practice within the frames of TSAS. Many of the graduate students he supervises are already busy on TSAS-related projects, from mapping the networks of extremist websites, to examining the role of social networks in processes of radicalization.

Another Ball in the Air – Joining TSAS

When asked what his contribution to TSAS will be, Martin responds with demonstrative questions: One of the first things we ask ourselves when trying to assess the situation in Canada, is ‘What is the size of the terrorist threat?’ and ‘How many people are involved and affected?’

This is tied to his wish to affect policy, and shares commonalities with the work he undertook in the past. ’To aptly direct society’s resources towards crime prevention, we need to understand the size of the activity that is going on’. He points out the important notion of matching the response to the threat, and how this is essential for good policy making.

Martin has several simultaneous projects on the go. Among other things, he has co-authored a recent paper, ”Introducing the Terrorism and Extremism Network Extractor” (in press), which was presented at the 4th Annual ‘Illicit Networks’ Workshop at Simon Fraser University in early October (which he also organized and hosted). In collaboration with students Richard Frank and Kila Joffres, Martin has conducted an analysis of the content and pattern of four websites to detect extremist tendencies based on the occurrence of specific keywords and the context in which they are used. Inspired by concepts and methods used by the Dark Web Project at the University of Arizona, Martin and his co-authors are developing a web crawler, the Terrorism and Extremism Network Extractor( TENE) designed to conduct quick analysis and detect the potential extreme content in online communities. While enthusiastic about the analytical possibilities of the TENE software, Martin mentions that it is still an exploratory design — a software that places the researchers in a position where they are wary of making assumptions.

Automatic analysis has its strengths, he explains, but the manual component in his research is included to prevent conflation of values and assumptions based on mathematical logic, but not necessarily in a cultural sense. When asked about the methodological challenges of attributing the occurrences of words with codified values in software, Martin replies thoughtfully that: ’we are going to a place with this research where any grey area needs to be designated as grey area in the software’. ’Trying to model the most obvious and extreme form of terrorist activity, to label it properly – carries both a danger, and a great potential.’

All Martin’s research efforts tie into a desire to affect Canadian security policy. He hopes to reach conclusions that will provide solutions and recommendations for the legal system that counters and monitors terrorism in Canada. Martin hopes TSAS can find a Canadian approach to security that is reasonable and proportionate to our wide ranging and diverse society.

by Sarah M Przedpelska, November, 21, 2012

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Lorne Dawson: Pioneer Researcher on Home Grown Terrorist Radicalization

“Canada doesn’t have specialists within the field of terrorism research“. 
Lorne Dawson hopes to fill that void.

“There is almost nobody in Canada talking specifically about terrorist radicalization,” Lorne Dawson recounts his experiences over the last five years, about the times he has been asked to participate in panels on the subject of radicalization. He is now sought after to share his expert opinion on terrorism and radicalization, although it wasn’t until recently that it became a focus within his research. Forming TSAS as one of the three executive committee members, Dawson is about to change what Canada is talking about.

As the Chair of the Department of Sociology and Legal Studies at the University of Waterloo, Dawson has previously researched and written extensively on new religious movements and charismatic leaders, but is now trying to understand the more complex underpinnings of terrorism. His shift was prompted by the continuous invitations to round tables and debates that made him realize that he was considered the closest thing to an expert on radicalization in the Canadian context. “I’m such a newbie to the field”, Dawson says, but continues to explain that there is a gap in Canadian knowledge about radicalization, and that he sees an opportunity to fill it.

His current research is on homegrown terrorism and the circumstances surrounding the Toronto 18. Gaining insight on how to impact governmental policies concerning prevention and de-radicalization is one of the goals of Dawson’s research. “It is necessary to understand how young people moved into this extreme position, and that requires a more subtle and precise understanding of the terrorism process than what we see today. The causes of homegrown terrorism are far more complex than simple economic deprivation or the appeal of ideology.” Dawson believes TSAS will be able to provide a more sophisticated understanding of small groups dynamics, identity issues and challenges of marginalization that will give insight into what actually causes homegrown terrorism.

Dawson’s new focus is reflected in his upcoming book, Religion, Radicalization and Securitization in Canada and Beyond (University of Toronto Press), co-edited with Paul Bramadat at University of Victoria. The book is the result of their collaborative project on the relationship between the forces of radicalization (within particular minority religious groups in Canada) and securitization (by the state and society).

TSAS and Canada’s unique position.
The fact that there are already a vast number of research facilities around the world focusing on terrorism, does not worry Dawson. He points out Canada’s unique position, and how the country is quite different from our neighbours south of the border. Since we are so different from other countries Canada needs a distinct response, Dawson says, and TSAS will provide this through a multidisciplinary approach, less engrained in the traditional disciplines. “In a way, we will be pioneers.”

A collaborative model will form TSAS’ response, where the network of scholars will strive to create theoretical tools based on empirical findings: the analysis of case studies and primary data that Canadian policy makers can then utilize and implement on the ground. The multidisciplinary approach of TSAS enables collaborations along new lines. An important focus for TSAS is to create these collaborations between graduate students and established researchers. Dawson is not foreign to this mode of work, and has several grad students under his wing. Several of his students are affiliated with TSAS and other research projects, and have shown great promise in this new field. One graduate student is assisting him directly in the compilation of a literature review for TSAS, while others inspire with the field- work they do. Being able to see the connections between on-the-ground practices and policy is one of the objectives of good sociology and in line with the search for original and primary data that TSAS is promoting.

In addition to the finishing stages of editing his upcoming book, Religion, Radicalization and Securitization, in Canada and Beyond, Dawson is also the main coordinator for TSAS’ first workshop on Terrorist Radicalization, taking place in Toronto on November 10^th. Ultimately he intends to write a book that provides a comprehensive examination of religious extremism and violence.

by Sarah M Przedpelska, October, 2012
UBC graduate student