Conceptualizing a National Threat: Representations of “Homegrown Terrorism” in the News Media, Academia, and Grey Literature in Canada

Abstract

This article critically examines how the problem of “homegrown terrorism” is represented in a content analysis of news media, academic scholarship, and grey literature in Canada between 2013 and 2016. Findings centred around five primary themes: (1) homegrown terrorism is new to Canada and is growing in scope; (2) it represents a significant threat to national security; (3) it is a problem that tends to manifest in, and transform, “normal” youth; (4) it lacks any identifiable causes; and (5) it has culminated in a new regime of persistent threat and uncertainty in Canada. Based on the saturation of these themes, I argue that a narrative template has formed and proliferated across media, academic, and grey literatures, acting as a framework for understanding the homegrown terrorism problem’s key features that are legitimated by the repeated presence of a small group of expert and official sources. The second part of this article interrogates this conceptualization, including the criteria used in selecting cases and the underlying operation of racialized, orientalist discourses on Canadian Muslims that work to distinguish homegrown terrorism from other types of political violence in the country and to render it antithetical to Canadian values. This article provides a conceptual snapshot of homegrown terrorism around the time of highly publicized events (e.g., the 2014 Parliament Hill attack) that continue to impact Canadian politics and society. This analysis offers insight as ideas of radicalization and violent extremism gain further prominence in realms of public policy, service and program delivery, and multiple political contexts.