Gender-specific prevention

Gender-specific prevention of radicalisation and extremism?

INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR

DateApril 13th.

TimeYet to be decided.

PlaceCopenhagen.

RegistrationInformation about registra-tion will be available through stopextremism.dk.

The role of women in extremism is historically not an unknown phenomenon, but over the last few years it has gained increased attention not least in relation to ISIS’ targetet recruitment of women. Today it has become more accepted that women dot not only function as agents of positive change in preventing extremism, but can just as well support extremist ideologies and groups and can play a major role in the recruitment and execution of terrorist attacks. Assumptions about the passitivity of women when it comes to radicalisation and extremism are on the decline.

On 13th April 2018, the Danish Ministry of Immigration and Integration and The National Center for Preventing Extremism is organising an international seminar on the issues of gender, women and prevention of radicalisation and extremism.

The seminar seeks to explore some basic questions in relation to women and extremism e.g. the role of women in recruitment and exit in different contexts, characterisation of female foreign fighters and what kind of narratives different extremist groups use to attract women.

The seminar further addresses some of the questions that arise around the subject of gender and extremism with a particular focus on the pros and cons of gender-specific initiatives to prevent radicalisation and extremism.

The seminar is open to practitioners (both public and private), officials, politicians and researchers engaged in the topic of preventing extremism.

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Gender-specific prevention

The four guest speakersINTERNATIONAL SEMINAR

Senior Research Fellow in the National Security and Resilience programme at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) focusing on extremism and radicalisation, countering violent extremism, peacebuilding and geopolitical relations in Asia, particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

She researches, writes and provides political and legal analysis and advice on issues of conflict, security, development and violent extremism. She has over 8 years’ experience in an international policymaking environment. Her work includes insurgency and radicalisation and women in violent extremism.

Her most recent projects include a DFID-funded research on conflict and violent extremism and a Canadian-government funded project exploring a gendered approach to radicalisation to violent extremism and CVE. The latter project was conducted together with Elizabeth Pearson).

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Emily Winterbotham

RUSI associate fellow and PhD candidate in War Studies at King’s College London, where she researches gender as a factor in ‘cumulative extremism’ in the UK. She specialises in gender and radicalisation, with an interest in both Islamist and far-right movements.

She has also worked on the impact of suspension in ISIS-supporting Twitter communities, and on gender-based violence among Salafi jihadists. Elizabeth has also written on female suicide bombing and Boko Haram.

Elizabeth Pearson

Part-time lecturer at the Department of Communication and Arts at Roskilde University, Denmark working with research areas related to political extremism and violence. Chris has written and co-authored a wide number of reports, mappings, expert groups, etc. and provided expert knowledge, taught and lectured on right- and left-wing extremism, radicalisation and political violence. Chris is considered one of Denmark’s leading experts in political extremism.

Chris Holmsted Larsen

PhD student at the Department of Communication and Arts at Roskilde University, Denmark. Sara’s PhD examines gender as a factor in Danish Salafi jihadi organisations communication on social media.

Sara recently published a paper titled “‘Mother’, ‘martyr wife’ or ‘mujahida’’’ (female fighter) on the assigned role of the Muslim woman in defensive jihad (jihad al-daf’a). The paper finds that whereas international ‘jihadi-organisations’, e.g. Islamic State, untill recently excluded the jihadi Salafi woman from the battlefield, Danish Jihadi Salafi groups have called on women to join combat for years.

Sara Jul Jacobsen