The social and relational life of Islamic State: a queer lens on gender, love and community-making under the caliphate.

This article harnesses a queer lens to explore the intimate and relational infrastructure of French members of Islamic State (IS) through first-hand interviews conducted in France. It calls for an empirically grounded queer scholarship in International Relations that challenges heteronormative frami...

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Publicado en:International Affairs Vol. 102; no. 4; pp. 1353 - 1372
Autor principal: Tollu, Aube
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Oxford University Press / USA Jul2026
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        atl: The social and relational life of Islamic State: a queer lens on gender, love and community-making under the caliphate.
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        au: Tollu, Aube
        affil: Stanford University, Stanford, United States
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        France
        Islamic State (Organization)
        Queer theory
        Gender
        Mujahideen
        Solidarity
        Group formation
        War
        Intimacy (Psychology)
        Caliphate
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          Queer theory
          Gender
          Mujahideen
          Solidarity
          Group formation
          War
          Intimacy (Psychology)
          France
          Islamic State (Organization)
          Caliphate
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        copyrightHolder:The Royal Institute of International Affairs
        copyrightYear:2026
        critical terrorism studies
        inLanguage:en
        intimate relationships
        jihadists
        publisher:Oxford University Press
        queer
        queer methodology
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        terrorism
        copyrightHolder:The Royal Institute of International Affairs
        copyrightYear:2026
        critical terrorism studies
        inLanguage:en
        intimate relationships
        jihadists
        publisher:Oxford University Press
        queer
        queer methodology
        sameAs:https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiag051
        terrorism
      ab: This article harnesses a queer lens to explore the intimate and relational infrastructure of French members of Islamic State (IS) through first-hand interviews conducted in France. It calls for an empirically grounded queer scholarship in International Relations that challenges heteronormative framings of armed actors, demonstrating the potential of queer theory to study non-sexual orientation and gender identity-diverse populations. Against the drawbacks of the literature on masculinities and femininities in jihadist groups, as well as the scholarship on bonding and brotherhood in this milieu, the article draws from four years of online ethnography and extensive life-story interviews with nine French men and women who had pledged allegiance to IS in the previous ten years, to introduce two queer-inspired concepts: chosen family and queer friendships. This queer framework offers a novel understanding of jihadist intimacy and community-making, in the context of working with subjects who do not self-identify as LGBTQ+. The article reveals how intimate bonds serve as sites of solidarity-making, personal agency towards healing and caretaking at the margins, entangled with and challenging heteronormative understandings of gender and bonds in jihadist militancy. The article foregrounds seeing voluntary ties in armed groups as spaces of fluid and affective gender roles that align with as well as challenge traditional understandings of gender and armed conflict, interrogating how war can emerge from peoples' attempts to live and love well.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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