Theorizing Terrorism

Dr Rizwaan Sabir is a Lecturer in Criminology in the School of Justice Studies at Liverpool John Moores University and has worked there since 2015. His research specialism lays in examining counter-terrorism, counterinsurgency, and armed Muslim groups, especially the way in which counterinsurgency theory, doctrine, and practice have been integrated into the UK's domestic 'War on Terror' infrastructure.

While he was a postgraduate student, Rizwaan Sabir downloaded a document from the US State Department website needed to conduct research for his dissertation on al-Qaeda. This action led him to be profiled, arrested and detained for suspected terrorism, and then surveilled on his release without charge for years to come. His new book, The Suspect: Counterterrorism, Islam, and the Security State (Pluto Press), described as an ‘instant classic’ by Arun Kundnani, draws on the author's lived experiences of being suspected of terrorism to take the reader on a journey of British counterterrorism, its connections with counterinsurgency theory and practice in the global ‘war on terror’, and the ways in which knowledge and storytelling can be used to contest and resist dominant ways of ‘knowing’ about terrorism and counterterrorism.

Dr Sabir will be in conversation by Dr Lisa Stampnitzky, University of Sheffield, and author of the ground-breaking book Disciplining Terror: How Experts Invented ‘Terrorism(Cambridge University Press) which examines the construction of terrorism discourse and the ways in which knowledge has been constructed around terrorism in contemporary history. The book won the Francesco Guicciardini Prize for Best Book Historical and International Relations,

Lisa Stampnitzky is a Lecturer in Politics at the University of Sheffield, where she teaches on terrorism and political violence, human rights, and international politics. She earned her Ph.D. in sociology at the University of California at Berkeley, and has previously held visiting positions at a number of universities, including Oxford, Harvard, Stanford, and the European University Institute. Her current book project, How Torture Became Speakable, examines the transformation of torture from an unspeakable evil to a legitimate policy option in the U.S. after 2001.

Chair: Professor Linsey McGoey 

This seminar is part of an open seminar series, hosted by the Centre for Research in Economic Sociology and Innovation Centre for Criminology.