Event

 

The treatment of women and children within the so-called Islamic State (IS), and European states’ management of their rehabilitation and reintegration has recently received much attention. Meanwhile, less attention has been paid to how the journeys into and out of violent extremism of such women and others have been rooted in specific places and are gendered processes of radicalisation.

In this seminar, Dr Katherine Brown illuminates these still underresearched questions in light of her own academic studies on gender mainstreaming in counter violent extremism (CVE) policies and programmes. Explaining the significance of the concept of gendered radicalisation, the seminar will illuminate how multiple factors on the paths to violent extremism – social, local, individual, and global – can differ for men and women, and why. Addressing both Far Right and Islamist violent extremism, the seminar will demonstrate the significance of gender and place in the multiple journeys to violent extremism. It argues that CVE policies and programmes have to work with layered, localised and gendered understandings of violent extremism and the legacy effects of past CVE.

The seminar is hosted by the Consortium for Research on Terrorism and International Crime.

 

Speakers bio

Dr Katherine Brown is a Reader in Islamic Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK. Her work focuses on the intersection between religion, gender and violent extremism. She is the author of Gender, Religion, Extremism: finding women in anti-radicalisation (2020) and is the co-author of Countering Violent Extremism: Making Gender Matter (2021). Dr Brown also serves as a consultant for UN Women, NATO, the EU, and is an expert witness in court cases involving women and children associated with terrorism and violent extremism. Her most recent work looks at the role of the arts and humanities in resilience to violent extremism.