Project Details
Projekt
Judging terror: German courts as societal spaces of negotiation and knowledge production on far-right and jihadist terrorism (Judging Terror)
Subject Area
Empirical Social Research
Term
since 2024
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 536358336
Our research project engages with terrorism trials in Germany involving far-right and jihadist ideologies. We ask how the negotiation of ‘terrorism’ in the interactions and performances of engaged actors in the courtroom (micro level) interconnects with the (re)production of judicial knowledge of terrorism in the courtroom (meso level) and public knowledge on it in the media (macro level). Our object is to understand how micro-, meso- and macro-level social dynamics converge in trial proceedings to co-construct and co-produce ‘terrorism’, so that courtrooms function as social spaces where identity is negotiated and knowledge produced. Under the umbrella of a critical and intersectional analytical framework, therefore, we shall be applying two research foci: (1) Interactionist analysis of court hearings and identity constructions in media discourses (Bögelein & Roth); (2) Knowledge discourse analysis of court hearings and media discourses (Eppert & Schmidt-Kleinert). In a complementary and comparative manner, we will analyse the construction of ‘terrorism’ in trials where the defendants are male or female and motivated by far right or jihadist ideologies, by examining underlying structures of power, gender, race, agency, identity, and processes of ‘othering’. Methodologically, our project is grounded in ethnographic documentation of court hearings in selected cases and related media coverage. We will apply a grounded-theory approach to data collection and analysis and aim to further the understanding of terrorism trials and their societal function in dealing with terrorism. In combination, the proposed analytical dimensions, methodological design and empirical scope of our project constitute new epistemological territory. Our work will thus align with an international re-search context, and its results contribute to an international academic exchange.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
