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Terror Crime Prevention: Constructing Muslim Practices and Beliefs as ‘Anti-Social’ and ‘Extreme’ through CONTEST 2

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2009

Basia Spalek  and
Laura Zahra McDonald
Basia Spalek
Affiliation:
IASS, University of Birmingham E-mail: b.spalek@bham.ac.uk
Laura Zahra McDonald
Affiliation:
IASS, University of Birmingham E-mail: l.z.mcdonald@bham.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article discusses recent research into engagement and partnership work between Muslim communities and police for the purposes of counter-terrorism. It is argued that asserting a notion of ‘shared values’ as a foundational criterion for choosing which individuals/groups to engage in countering terrorism is strategically flawed. Not only is the notion of ‘values’ overly diffuse and conceptually ill-defined, it is dangerous in its potential to construct even the most normative Muslim practices and beliefs as ‘anti-social’ and ‘extreme’. This is likely to further alienate Muslim communities in general and to exclude those groups with whom the State has so far successfully engaged to counter terrorism. The article further reflects upon engagement and partnership work between police and Muslim minorities perceived as ‘radical’, highlighting how the goal of terror crime prevention can be – and is – shared between police and communities, despite negative and stigmatizing impacts of the ‘War on Terror’.

Type
Themed section on Disciplining Difference
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , January 2010 , pp. 123 - 132
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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