Terrorism is a concept replete with complexities and attempts to define it elusive and complicated (Anderson, 2002; Golder & Williams, 2004; Kennedy, 2005; Primoratz, 2004; Zulaika & Douglass, 1996).The United Nations continue to have difficulties with the definition. The use of Clive William’s definition was a pragmatic choice as well as an interpretative preference. It is pragmatic in that it is necessary to ‘fix’ a particular definition of terrorism in order to progress writing. In this definition terrorism is a fixed immutable concept, and is used most frequently in mainstream discourse. This objective interpretation is a seductive one, as it is easier to talk about terrorism if it is an undisputed ‘fact’. In using William’s definition my initial phenomenological approach (searching for a truth) to the research is highlighted.

Kvale’s (1996, p.3) analogy of the researcher as a miner is a useful one to use in this instance. As a conscientious and diligent post graduate, this mining expedition to find out about and solve terrorism was conducted with much gusto and a flurry of activity. Interviews, literature, various discourses, personal journals, and my own experiences were mined for the ‘truth’ about terrorism. Clearly there is a contradiction here between the stated phenomenological underpinnings of this research and my approach at various stages throughout this paper. The struggles highlighted in this paper stem from this contradiction. Attempts to move away from the compelling comfort of certainty, and accept uncertainty are at the core of this relationship with terrorism.

What is it we are doing when we theorise? Is it an act of interpretation, a reworking of new ideas into new frameworks? Or is it an act of re/visioning, where ‘new to me’ vision is re/assembled and re/organised using ways of seeing previously inscribed in time. Or is it a new way of performing the same text, except now it is an opera with a new cast and a different set design? Theorising ought to lead to moments of clarity where a crystallisation of ideas forms a unique view. And then a word, an idea, or a thought later the view changes - like a kaleidoscope (S. Young, 2005). The use of the kaleidoscope as an analogy reflects the contextual, interpretative, dynamic, and experiential process theorising represents and illustrates how it is used in this paper.

Proximity provided a way of organising the overwhelming amount of data into a manageable format. The path to proximity as an organisational framework was sparked by a journal article, A Taxonomy of Disasters and Their Victims, (Taylor, 1987). In this article Taylor attempts to classify victims according to particular categories (primary, secondary through to sesternary4, only to realise that the lived experience of individuals complicates categorising. My conceptualisation of proximity moves away from the imposition of categories and invites individuals to identify their own lived experience of proximity. Through the telling of my own personal experience and interpretation of proximity to risk, it became evident that there are multiple constructions of both proximity and risk.

The definition of risk as, “the probabilities of physical harm due to given technological or other processes” (Beck, 1992, p.4), which is used in the performance piece is again a pragmatic decision. Much of Beck’s theorising is concerned with the construction, production and distribution of risk (bads or dangers). He argues that risk is a social construction and posits that risk is superimposed onto the distribution of goods but there is an inverse relationship. “The history of risk production shows that like wealth, risks adhere to the class pattern only inversely. Wealth accumulates at the top, risks at the bottom” (Beck, 1992, p.35). As well as highlighting the relationship between class and risk, Beck explores how the perception of risk can be amplified through the mass media and government policy decisions
(Beck, 1999; Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 2002; Beck & Willms, 2004). At times it seems that these policy decisions are transparent Machiavellian strategies. The use of the discourse of terrorism is, some argue, a case in point (Anderson, 2002; Michaelsen, 2005).

Cartesian dualism is a central tenet of philosophy which springs from the Enlightenment (Plumwood, 1993). Descartes’ modernist philosophy was a response to the idea of an all knowing cosmic God and places confidence in the human minds’ capacity for reason and rational thought. In prioritising the mind, connections to the everyday world and its uncertainties are severed. The thinking self is situated beyond the reach of the messiness of the lived world and rationality prevails (Falzon, 1998). This is demonstrated in dualisms such as human/nature, mind/body, masculine/feminine, and good/evil. As I researched and listened to participants I used the concept of Cartesian dualism to understand the sense that my self was splitting into two; an enquiring mind and a helpless body. This concept supported my initial thinking and attempts to make sense of a world which appeared to have moved from benevolence to malevolence.

Each of these phases was precipitated by an event, which led in some way to a change in direction in my research journey. Experiential learning theories provide some crystallisation here. At the core of this theoretical perspective is the interaction between the self and experience. As we experience new events the boundary around self is challenged and temporarily destabilised. The capacity to assimilate these new events into the self and emerge challenged and somehow changed is described as the experiential learning process. Kolb (1984) explains,

That this is a learning process is perhaps better illustrated by the nonlearning postures that can result from the interplay between expectation and experience. To focus so sharply on continuity and certainty that one is blinded to the shadowy penumbra of doubt and uncertainty is to risk dogmatism and rigidity, the inability to learn from new experience. (p.28)

There are seven I’s in this pre-research phase. In proofing this section this seemed a glaring indulgence and an example of what Geertz labels, ‘diary disease’ (1987, p.90). However my instinct was to leave the I’s for two reasons. The first is the sense of self absorption the I’s highlight. My willingness to engage with other was limited by my inwardness. This self absorption and ignorance extends beyond the psychological idea of a single self and to the boundaries of the nation state. In both instances, it is the capacity to explore and extend boundaries, which affect how I view the rest of the world and hence engage with other. Using I signals this deficit which was highlighted when the September 11 attacks occurred.

The second point in relation to the use of I, concerns the ‘fiercely individualist market economy’ (Saunders, 2002, p.i) which is a feature shared by most Western capitalist countries. The ideology of individualism is at the core of neoliberalism 5 and the global market place. Globalisation advantages privileged Western countries that ensure capital passes through nation state borders unfettered. In accepting the advantages of this global market place and allowing unfettered capital to enter into our world, there is a moral and ethical responsibility for individuals to ensure that sentient beings and the environment in other parts of the world are unharmed. My own failure to see beyond my own comfort and pay attention to the exporting of risk or bads is highlighted here. In severing the connection between local and global, potential relationships with others are also severed. The I is privileged and the other mostly absent, unknown and unimagined. My perception of these others is that they are predominantly brown, poor, fundamentalists, or oppressed.

September 11, 2001 is a date. The words and numbers have come to be infused with much more that the labelling of a temporal fragment. The date signifies and is signifier of a mass of complex and contradictory meanings. 911 is an American signifier. An Australian arrangement 1109 does not have the same impact. The 9/11 Commission Report (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, 2003) provides a succinct chronological description of the attacks which killed nearly three thousand people on September 11th, 2001. These murders were played out on prime time television over and over again. The sense of shock in my community was palpable. It is the day/event which precipitated my loss of innocence and ignorance. The date has become a sign for the beginning of a ‘new world order’ and the end of ignorance for those in the West. For those who live with risk every day 911 was just another day to survive.

The physiological and psychological reactions described above are shared by many people. One of my first responses is to look for familiarity and I search within the boundaries of my self for an explanation. ‘Trying on’ familiar ways of meaning making which help keep my benevolent world intact. The first attribution comes quickly and fits with the context - it is on television so is contrived, a media stunt. Other attributions come and go. I try them all, discarding what doesn’t fit. And then when I see the media coverage of Middle Eastern6 people celebrating I realise that there is more to it. As a social worker I am trained to consider context however another world has come rudely crashing through my boundaries. The media coverage facilitates this and shoves it in my face.

The sense of risk is amplified by both media coverage, and the way I perceive my self. The concept of proximity helps to make sense of the responses. Movies, television shows and magazines all bring America/ns into my everyday world. Americans have white Western bodies ‘like mine’ and so fall within my perception of self, so attacks on Americans feel like an attack on me. However, it is a constructed America which is imported into my world and the relationship with America/ns built on an artifice. As this artifice is shattered it creates distance and a sense of safety for my self. Anti-America sentiment bubbles to the surface and I wonder what ‘they’ did to deserve this act of terrorism, in the process othering them. American foreign policy increases the sense of distance, as years of exporting risk boomerangs back in a catastrophic way. The boundary around self is maintained and my thinking again drawn towards a polarised position.

The language of terrorism saturates the media and government policy. This language is new to me. My capacity to make sense of it all is affected by the level of fear, which is affected by the discourse, and so it goes in circles. Whilst there is a recognition of terrorism as a politicised slogan rather than a fixed immutable concept (Anderson, 2002), it is hard to let go of the certainty George Bush and John Howard offer. As all good social workers do, I look beyond the rhetoric and the discourse of terrorism. The saying, ‘One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist’, offers a glimmer of how discourse works. There is an other side to all this. As Zulaika & Douglass (1996) explain:

It is the reality-making power of the discourse itself that most concerns us- its capacity to blend the media’s sensational stories, old mythical stereotypes, and a burning sense of moral wrath. Once something that is called ‘terrorism’-no matter how loosely defined it is- becomes established in the public mind, “counterterrorism” is seemingly the only prudent course of action. (p.ix)

My anxiety finds another target as anti-terrorism legislation is hastily enacted in Australia. This legislation curtails civil liberties and dismantles long held checks and balances (Michaelsen, 2005). The increased security measures give more power to the state and the carefully established balance between the state and its citizens lost in a frighteningly short time. The absence of social work voices in the groups protesting gives me cause for concern. There is nothing in my existing self which provides a framework for understanding the context of the unfolding events. My social work education has provided me with some understanding of the complexity of the world, but appears to stop at the boundaries of the nation state. My PhD research is triggered by curiosity and a search to see if other social workers were as uninformed as I am. It is at this point that my search begins to go beyond the boundary of my self and my nation. In moving beyond self there comes an active search for dialogue with other.

Six months into my research the bombs exploded at Paddy’s night club and the Sari Club in Kuta Bali. It is hard to theorise here. These are my people … and my place. Psychological explanations highlight individual trauma, sociological literature explicate context and the focus depends on the theorist whose lens you peer through. Philosophy provides ways of comprehending life. How ever you choose to make sense of something like this, at the end of the day when the curtain falls and you are alone, the tears come. And in that moment of tears, the space between life and death, man and nature, male and female closes. There is no distance; it is all connected, your breath moving the universe in and out of your body. There are no degrees of separation now.

By day it is different; the outrage and grief roar across my suburbs. Brittle hatred lies alongside paralysing grief. The responses vary but the popular political one is of outrage and a focus on tough preventive measures. My non-corporeal realm observes from a distance and Cartesian dualism provides a conceptualisation which helps make sense of the splitting. Whilst this binary thinking provides comfort it also impacts on my capacity to move beyond self. However there comes a point when a choice has to be made - to be curious and move outwards or turn inwards to rigidity and certainty. As a researcher the choice is made for me and I wretchedly turn outwards armed with gentle curiosity and start(ed) listening.

As highlighted earlier the definition of terrorism is contested and controversial. A Marxist analysis would assert that the discourse of terrorism is influenced by those who exert some control and power over the means of knowledge production-the mass media and government. Thus an important aspect of this research is a discourse analysis. In this analysis questions such as, Where are we going? Who gains, who loses, by which mechanisms of power? Is it desirable? What should be done? (Flyvberg, 2001, p.145) are directed at discourse. The overwhelming volume of discourse heightens the importance of this phase of the research, particularly as it privileges a particular view of terrorism.

In order to capture other views of terrorism such as state terrorism, I looked across both the boundary of my self and nation state to East Timor. Interviews with East Timorese community workers provided a powerful sense of how others were interpreting terrorism. However what was more significant in terms of the impact on my research was the absence of the discourse of terrorism. The effect of this silence was enormous and highlighted how powerful the discourse is in Australia. In recognising that physical proximity was only one aspect of my relationship with terrorism, the importance of attending to analysis of social structures is elucidated. The fluidity of the space between subjectivity and social structures is captured powerfully in a sweaty moment in a café in Dili. Again I drew upon the concept of Cartesian dualism to make sense of my experience, using risk and proximity as categories, but now I have some misgivings. These misgivings centre on the constant splitting of my self into two realms. The concept of embodiment and the idea of a lived body provides an alternative lens which crystallises and clarifies my thinking.

The discourse of terrorism continues but its impact on my lived body is less potent as I assimilate the experience of discourse silence. Some days I feel worried and some days I laugh; my lived body experiencing a range of different responses (I. M. Young, 2002, p.416). Although I still struggle with how to ‘Be alert but not alarmed’, I see terrorism differently now. There is no resolution though, the uncertainty continues but now feminists’ lenses begin to provide crystallisation and clarity. The London bombings have provided a new other, the inside other. And so the relationship continues…

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time
(Eliot, 1943).

---

Notes

1. I would like to acknowledge Libby Lloyd, a colleague who first proposed to me the idea that all of us, in some way, have to articulate and negotiate an intimate relationship with terrorism at many levels. This includes micro, meso, macro and mega levels.

2. Reflexivity has many conceptual understandings. In this paper it is used in its broadest sense. “Reflection (reflexivity) is thus above all a question of recognizing fully the notoriously ambivalent relation of a researcher’s text to the realities studied….and turning a self-critical eye onto one’ own authority as interpreter and author (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2000 p.vii).

3. This style of autoethnography is more in line with ‘autobiographical ethnography’ one of three which Reed-Danahay identifies, “…in which anthropologists interject personal experience into ethnographic writing” (Reed-Danahay, 1997 p.2).

4. Sesternary victims – “…those miscellaneous people who (a) think that but for chance events they would have been primary or secondary victims; (b) refrained from expressing a premonition to somebody who subsequently became a victim …[etc]” (Taylor, 1987, p.540).

5. "....This is a doctrine which states ' the markets and prices are the only reliable means of setting a value on anything, and further, that markets and money can always, at least in principle, deliver better outcomes than states and bureaucracies..." (Saunders, 2002, p.8).

6. When I presented this autoethnographic performance a respected academic questioned me about my assumptions in this sentence. She appeared angry and asked if I had considered that the media may have misrepresented the context in which the people were celebrating. I was mortified and tried to explain that this was a reflective piece and as such represented my initial struggle to make sense of the events put before me. As a result of this exchange I deleted the words Middle Eastern from this paper. I decided to reinsert the words with a footnote, as I considered the exchange an example of the complexities inherent in this relationship with terrorism.

---

References

Alvesson, M., & Sköldberg, K. (2000). Reflexive Methodology: New Vistas for Qualitative Research. London: Sage Publications.

Anderson, T. (2002, 9 August). Terrorism and Terrorisation. Paper presented at the The War On Terrorism. Democracy Under Challenge, Victorian Trades Hall Council. Melbourne.

<>Bavonese, J., & Bavonese, S. (2004). The Stages of Committed Relationships. Retrieved 26th July, 2004, from https://www.relationship-institute.com/freearticles_detail.cfm?article_ID=153

Beck, U. (1992). Risk Society: Towards A New Modernity. London: Sage Publications.

Beck, U. (1999). World Risk Society. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Beck, U., & Beck-Gernsheim, E. (2002). Individualisation. Institutionalised Individualism and its Social and Political Consequences. London: Sage Publications.

Beck, U., & Willms, J. (2004). Conversations with Ulrich Beck (M. Pollak, Trans.). Cambridge: Polity Press.

Buzard, J. (2003). On Auto-Ethnographic Authority. The Yale Journal of Criticism, 16(1), 61-91.

Denzin, N. K. (2003). Performance Ethnography: Critical Pedagogy and the Politics of Culture. London: Thousand Oaks.

Eliot, T. S. (1943). Four Quartets. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Falzon, C. (1998). Foucault and Social Dialogue: Beyond Fragmentation. London: Routledge.

Flyvberg. (2001). Making Social Science Matter (S. Sampson, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punishment. London: Penguin Books.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed (M. B. Ramos, Trans.). London: Penguin Books.

Geertz, C. (1987). Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Golder, B., & Williams, G. (2004). What is 'Terrorism'? Problems of Legal Definition. UNSW Law Journal, 27(2), 270-295.

Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (1985). Naturalistic Inquiry. California: Sage Publications.

Kennedy, G. (2005). The Security Council and Counterterrorism: Global and Regional Approaches to an Elusive Public Good. Terrorism and Political Violence, 17(2), 37-65.

Kolb, D. (1984). Experential Learning. New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc.
Kvale. (1996). InterViews. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

Marcus, G. E. (1994). What Comes (Just) After "Post"? The Case Of Ethnography. In N. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Handbook of Qualitative Research (pp. 563-574). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

McDonald, S. (2004). Holy Cow; An Indian Adventure. New York: Broadway Books.

Michaelsen, C. (2005). Antiterrorism Legislation in Australia: A Proportionate Response to the Terrorist Threat?, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism (Vol. 28, pp. 321-339).

Monroy-Nasr, Z. (1998, 10-15 August). Cartesian Dualism and the Union of Mind and Body: A Synchronic Interpretation. Paper presented at the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, Boston, Massachusetts.

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. (2003). The 9/11 Commission Report. New York: W.W Norton and Company.

Olesen, V. L. (1992). Extraordinary Events and Mundane Ailments: The Contextual Dialectics of the Embodied Self. In C. Ellis & M. Flaherty (Eds.), Investigating Subjectivity: Research on Lived Experience. California: Sage Publication.

Oxford English Dictionary Online. (2000). Retrieved 17th November, 2004, from https://dictionary.oed.com/entrance.dtl

Plumwood, V. (1993). Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. London: Routledge.

Primoratz, I. (Ed.). (2004). Terrorism: The Philosophical Issues. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Reed-Danahay, D. E. (Ed.). (1997). Auto/Ethnography: Rewriting the Self and the Social. New York: Berg.

Saunders, P. (2002). The Ends and Means of Welfare: Coping with economic and social change in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Taylor, A. J. (1987). A Taxonomy of Disasters and Their Victims. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 31(5), 535-544.

White, S. (2001). Auto-Ethnography as Reflexive Inquiry: The Research Act as Self-Surveillance. In I. Shaw & N. Gould (Eds.), Qualitative Research in Social Work. London: Sage Publications.

Williams, C. (2004). Terrorism Explained. New Holland: New Holland Publishers.

Young, I. M. (2002). Lived Body vs Gender: Reflections on Social Structure and Subjectivity. Ratio, 15(4), 410-428.

Young, S. (2005). The Kaleidoscope View. Perth: Personal communication.

Zulaika, J., & Douglass, W. A. (1996). Terror and Taboo. The follies, fables and faces of terrorism. New York: Routledge.

---

Back to top