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Banning them: Securing us? The politics of proscribing terrorist organisations - Lee Jarvis (UEA) lecture

Date
Date
Monday 18 November 2019, 1pm
Location
Liberty Building LT LG.06

Abstract: Many states and international organisations maintain a list of proscribed – or banned – terrorist groups. Entry on such a list typically serves to outlaw an organisation from a designated territory, triggering a range of offences around membership of, or support for, such a group. Despite widespread use, and quite significant consequences for citizenship, proscription remains curiously under-studied: not least vis-à-vis alternative counter-terrorism instruments. In this presentation I draw on research with Tim Legrand of the University of Adelaide to explore the implications of this power for the politics of security and identity. Focusing primarily upon the British experience, I argue proscription, is: (i) integral to the imagination and shaping of contemporary political boundaries; (ii) illustrative of a more complex politics of security than often associated with (counter-)terrorism policy; and, (iii) indicative of the ritualistic reproduction of authority within liberal democracies.

 

Lee Jarvis is a Professor of International Politics at UEA.

Lee's research focuses on the politics of security, terrorism and counter-terrorism. He is an editor of the journal Critical Studies on Terrorism, and has published over fifty chapters or articles, including in leading journals such as Security Dialogue, Political Studies, Review of International Studies, Terrorism and Political Violence, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, International Relations, International Political Sociology, Millennium, Politics, International Studies Review, and Citizenship Studies. Lee is (co-) author or editor of thirteen books, including Times of Terror: Discourse, Temporality and the War on Terror, Cyberterrorism: Understanding, Assessment and ResponseCounter-Radicalisation: Critical PerspectivesSecurity: A Critical Introduction, Terrorism Online: Politics, Law and Technology, Anti-Terrorism, Citizenship and Security, and the award-winning textbook Terrorism: A Critical Introduction.

Lee’s research has been externally funded by sources including the ESRC, AHRC, NATO, and the US Office of Naval Research. He engages with a range of think tanks, advocacy groups, security professionals and charities in his research, and has submitted evidence to bodies such as the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor (Australia) and the UK Home Office. Lee has supervised PhD students working on a range of topics including terrorism, cyberterrorism, counter-terrorism and political communication.

Lee is a member of the ESRC Peer Review College and the GCRF Peer Review College. Between 2011 and 2014 Lee co-convened the BISA Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group, and he is co-founder and co-director of the multidisciplinary Cyberterrorism Project:http://www.cyberterrorism-project.org/.

Lee's most recent funded research project - British [Muslim] Values - involves collaboration with UEA colleagues Lee Marsden and Eylem Atakav. The project employed video autoethnographies to explore the impact of ideas around 'British Values' on Muslim individuals and communities across the East of England. Other recent projects include work with Michael Lister (Oxford Brookes University) on the impacts of anti-terrorism powers on citizenship and security across the UK; with Stuart Macdonald (Swansea University) and others on cyberterrorism and cybersecurity; and, with Tim Legrand (University of Adelaide) on the proscription of terrorist organisations. Lee's next monograph is under contract with Manchester University Press, provisionally titled 'Banning them, Securing us?: The Politics of Proscribing Terrorist Organisations'.

To find out more about his research, please check out Lee's personal website, follow him on Twitter @LeeJarvisPols