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Subjects of Care: Ethics, Education, Extremism


Type

Thesis

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Authors

Bastani, Niyousha 

Abstract

This dissertation questions a popular logic that takes the cultivation of “better thinking” as the path toward more caring and ethical political engagement. I study this logic by looking to globally pervasive educational and psychological approaches to counter-extremism, which target Muslims especially as knowing in dangerous ways. Counter-extremism in the UK throws into focus common beliefs about education, psychological well-being, and care. I argue that the latter beliefs co-constitute a widespread racialising ethic of “taking care of” the cognition of Others so that they become suitable, fully human subjects. The dissertation therefore asks: How do dominant beliefs about education, psychology, and care shape counter-extremism? What are the conditions of possibility for the emergence and dominance of these beliefs? How do these beliefs racialise some as less human Others on the basis of “cognitive development”, and what does this process reveal about dominant modes of racialisation more broadly? Pursuing these questions, I elucidate the dominant genre of being human that is secured by counter-extremism and the terms through which it produces its Other. I draw on ethnographic consideration of an extremism prevention “lab” (Chapter 2), historical investigation of the conditions of possibility for the emergence of this genre of being (Chapter 3), and ethnographic engagement with the everyday reproduction of this genre and resistance to it in UK higher education today (Chapters 4 and 5). My intervention deepens understanding of anti-Muslim racism. By pointing to counter-extremism’s framework of care, I challenge the consensus that anti-Muslim racism primarily works through an ethic of fear. I also draw attention away from the exceptionality of counter-terrorism’s production of Otherness by revealing the norms of psychology and education that enable it. In short, this dissertation illuminates how the common association of supposedly superior cognition with ethical superiority constitutes today’s dominant genre of being human.

Description

Date

2022-09-16

Advisors

Wilcox, Lauren

Keywords

counter-extremism, counter-terrorism, Muslim youth, race, security studies, Sylvia Wynter

Qualification

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Awarding Institution

University of Cambridge
Sponsorship
Cambridge Trust; St John's College; SSHRC (Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada)