Azra Naseem | Law and Government

Dr Azra Naseem

Picture of Azra NaseemDr Azra Naseem defended her PhD in March 2012. Her current research focus is the Islamist radicalisation of the Maldivian population, and its implications for security in South Asia and the Indian Ocean Region. After the controversial end to the first democratically elected government in the Maldives in February 2012, Azra worked to bring international attention to the ongoing authoritarian reversal and rapid radicalisation of Maldivian society through her own writing in national and international media, and by regular contributions to articles in international publications including Le Monde, Vanity Fair, Combating Terrorism Centre (CTC) Sentinel, Christian Science Monitor and the the World Almanac of Islamism. She is the author of www.dhivehisitee.com, a website specialising in the analysis of socio-political affairs and Islamist radicalisation in the Maldives.

Azra has a Master’s in International Relations from DCU and a BA in Journalism and Media Communications from Griffith College Dublin. Prior to joining DCU as a PhD candidate, she worked as a journalist in Dublin for several years and lectured in Media Law and Ethics at Griffith College Dublin. Her research interests also include US foreign policy and the War on Terror.

Thesis Title: On evildoers: A Foucaultian analysis of the discursive structuring of contemporary terrorism

Abstract:
Terrorism is routinely portrayed in the twenty first century as an evil perpetrated by Arab/Muslim barbarians—Evildoers—waging a holy war against the Western civilisation. This study challenges not just this present understanding of terrorism, but the very existence of a ding an sich of terrorism. Using a combination of Foucault’s archaeological and genealogical methods, it provides an alternative history of the phenomenon in the form of a history of its discursive structuring: the regimes of practices that governed what could and could not be thought of, identified, defined, known, judged and punished as ‘terrorism’ during particular epochs, and particular places. It asserts that the conceptual anchor point of the present Evildoer-terrorist is the rebel who opposes established order, and identifies the first such figure in modern Western history as the Devil who rebelled against God. The study asserts that the contemporary terrorist cannot be known as an Evildoer without the War on Terror; at the same time, the War on Terror cannot be waged without the knowledge of the terrorist as an Evildoer.

 Supervisors: Dr Maura Conway and Dr John Doyle