Toqa Hilal

Project Title: The Relation between Othering and Islamist Radicalization in Germany

Abstract:

The impact of the subjective perception of a schism between Muslims and non- Muslims as well as between Islam and the West on the identity changes associated with the radicalization process of German Islamists is the phenomenon that is under study here.

This dissertation empirically examines the biographic moments that led to the identity changes of radical Muslims throughout their radicalization, in an attempt to increase insight into the role of online and offline subjectively decoded experiences in triggering the phases and manifestations of radicalization in today’s digital era.

Using constructivist grounded theory, semi-standard biographic narrative interviews will be conducted with young Muslim Germans with radicalization history. Both men and women.

If willing to combat Islamist recruitment proactively, it is crucially important to recognize that their narrative only resonates when intersecting with the circumstances some young Muslims in the West find themselves in today. Increasing xenophobia and Islamophobia, alienation and cultural dislocation, socioeconomic marginalization and political disenfranchisement that the young generation of Muslim diasporic digital natives subjectively and/ or objectively experience can lead to take solace in faux-religious identities that provide them with a sense of identification and belonging and lift them from purposelessness, underachievement, marginalization and criminality.