Why conventional wisdom on radicalization fails: the persistence of a failed discourse

Politicians, the media, and some academics are getting it wrong about radicalization. Relying on simple narratives to explain how an individual departs from point a (‘a good Muslim boy’) to point b (‘a suicide bomber’), too many recent contributions to academia rely on assumptions and ‘conventional wisdom’ rather than testable and falsifiable empirical research and methods. Through specific cases, this article seeks to demonstrate how the over‐simplification of ‘conventional wisdom’ privileges convenient political narratives over the complex realities of such situations. In light of this failure to account for reality, this article seeks to challenge current thinking on radicalization by exposing its limitations, as currently being used, as a meaningful basis and departure point for rigorous social science research. The article concludes by showing how the current persistence of this ‘conventional wisdom’ approach to radicalization ultimately betrays the normative political assumptions of those who insist on using this term, and how this adherence to ‘conventional wisdom’ now deprives radicalization from being a relevant and useful academic or policy discourse. This is because radicalization as an area for study has been corrupted by its instrumental political application.     

RECALIBRATING SOCIETY: THE POPULATION GEOGRAPHY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA IN 1881

The nominal census of British Columbia for 1881 provides the basis for this analysis of the population distribution and social structure of the province. The provincial distributions of whites, Chinese, and native peoples are mapped and discussed, as are the population geographies of three regions: the Lower Skeena/Nass, the Southwestern Plateau, and the lands around the Strait of Georgia. The essay concludes with a discussion of the social categories employed in the census and of the particular relations of society and space in late-19th-century British Columbia.
Le recensement nominal de la Colombie Britannique en 1881 est à la base de cette analyse de la distribution de la population et de la structure sociale de la province. Les distributions provinciales des blancs, des chinois, et des indigènes sont cartographiées er analysées de même que la géographie de la population de trois régions: le bas Skeena / Nass, le plâteau du sud-ouest, et les côtes du détroit de Georgie. L'essai se termine par une discussion des catégories sociales utilisées dans le recensement et des rapports société-espace en Colombie Britannique vers la fin du dix-neuviéme siékle.