Our newest piece, from MA student Sam Olson, explores how three functions of terrorgram fiction foster accelerationist radicalization. Check it out! www.accresearch.org/shortanalysi...
By Samantha Olson, M.A. Candidate in Security Studies at Georgetown University
I did some research on the fires back then, and one thing that was notable was how well YouTube fared vs. X. It was completely different worlds, one platform that had learned lessons around these sort of crisis events, and one that had cut the brake lines. www.cip.uw.edu/2023/08/31/y...
The Lahaina wildfires were still raging as the first questions about whether they might have been “deliberately set” emerged online. Though all current evidence points to an accidental start, poten…
I don’t believe I am the only who thinks it’s past time we have this conversation and bring some of our analyses back in dialogue with a fuller understanding of concepts whose impact extends beyond the field of extremism and terrorism studies.
Similar concerns or requests for alternate frameworks are something that others from a variety of perspectives have brought to me.
I'm incredibly aware of my positionality as a White researcher while writing this and do not pretend to have all the answers or claims to some kind of absolute truth here.
I think this is a problem, not only from a stance of analytic accuracy, but also for harmfully watering down the meaning of white supremacy. This piece is an effort to explain this problem in detail and help move some taken-for-granted terminology back into their social science framework.
I've been thinking about the intersections of these issues with the topics the field analyzes for a long time. Recently, we've seen a simplifying of motives for participation in nostalgic (aka right wing/far right/etc.) groups such that they are increasingly all described as "white supremacist."
Part of it is also a result of the insensitivity of the field to these added harms. Many publications take the complex identities of extremism victims (and perps) for granted and, sometimes, still altogether ignore how race and racism must be considered for accurate analysis and prevention efforts
Part of this is because of the usual processes of academia and academia-adjacent spaces that perpetuate traditional power structures. Part of this is because people who are the targets of extremist hate face added mental health and other burdens when studying extremist motives, actions, and outcomes