Intersecting Terrorism Studies

Abstract

The chapter begins by looking at a feminist conceptualisation of civil disorder as related to gender and the threat of the feminine to public order. Understanding that the feminine is already disordered is important, but so is post-colonialism and Queer theory’s arguments that there are other forms of disorder as well. This idea of disorder as a deviation from power structures aligns nicely with ‘epistemic biases,’ which is both introduced and applied to terrorism. The perspective that terrorism is devoid of any rationality and morality are examples of an epistemic bias. Therefore, the rest of the chapter explores rationality and morality in further depth through the New Terrorism thesis and the Westphalian myth, respectively.