Podcast appearances and mentions of alexander thurston

Rob joins Alexander Thurston for a discussion on his work on the Sahel region, focusing on the interplay between radical Islamic groups, the civilian governments/military juntas of the regions and international players like the US and France. They discuss the social basis of the groups, the role of different countries and different armies, the reasons behind the military coups and their possible future paths as well as how much is not really known about these groups.

This week, Patrick C. Fox and John Allen Gay interview Dr. Alexander Thurston, an expert on conflicts, jihadism and stability in West Africa. Dr. Alex Thurston is a professor at the University of Cincinnati and a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute. This conversation covers sources of instability ranging from the French presence to the American intervention in Libya along with a conversation about the politics of the region, ranging from Niger's path to dictatorship, Nigeria's new leadership and the comparatively stable situations in Senegal and Chad.

In June this year, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the end of Operation Barkhane – a military offensive launched in 2013 against Islamist militants in the Sahel. France has determined, he said, it could no longer maintain a “constant presence” in West Africa. In this week's episode, host Mark Leonard discusses European interests in the region and what might change after France's Africa policy shift, together with Emanuela Del Re, former Italian deputy foreign minister and the new EU special representative for the Sahel; Sylvie Kauffmann, editorial director, lead writer, and columnist for Le Monde; as well as ECFR's Andrew Lebovich. What does the end of Operation Barkhane in its current form mean for the Sahel? What could further European and international engagement in the region look like? This podcast was recorded on 7 July 2021. Further reading: • “After Barkhane: What France's military drawdown means for the Sahel” by Andrew Lebovich: https://t.co/xxZ11TiM24 Bookshelf • ”La Guerre de vingt ans. Djihadisme et contre-terrorisme au XXIe siècle” by Marc Hecker & Elie Tenenbaum • “Jihadists of North Africa and the Sahel” by Alexander Thurston • “Être etudiant au Mali: chroniques d'une vie d'étudiant” by Boubacar Sangaré • “Moral Letters to Lucilius“ by Seneca •“From Empires to NGOs in the West African Sahel. The Road to Nongovernmentality” by Gregory Mann • “Half of a Yellow Sun” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie • “L'Islâm in Europa: riflessioni di un imâm italiano “ by Yahya Sergio Yahe Pallavicini

To be called a terrorist by one group is to be signaled as a kind of ultimate Other, a dark and essentially unknowable force that can only be crushed into oblivion. Deployments of the term has justified extralegal killings, torture, collective punishment, besiegements, and decimation of entire populations around the world while curtailing civil liberties of domestic populations at home. But there's a quiet force animating discussions on who is and is not a terrorist, which indirectly inform how it is used and popularly understood. Some entities appear simply immune to the term: there is no mainstream chorus of terrorism analysts genuinely insisting that the CIA is a terrorist organization even if its actions neatly fit within the same definition terrorist analysts rely on to label nascent jihadi organizations terrorists. Who is immune to the Terrorist label and its implications is thus just as important as who is subject to it. To get a better understanding of the politics behind terrorism discourse, I'll be speaking with Alexander Thurston, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Cincinnati, where he focuses on the study of Islam and Northwest Africa. Thurston is the author of the 2018 book, Boko Haram: The History of an African Jihadist Movement and has written about the prevalence of experts who always seem to pop up whenever a new terror threat is identified. He calls these people 'terrorologists.'

Listen now | Returning champion Alexander Thurston rejoins the podcast to talk about his new book, Jihadists of North Africa and the Sahel: Local Politics and Rebel Groups. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at fx.substack.com/subscribe

Boko Haram is one of the most well known global terrorist organizations. They have killed thousands of people and displaced millions of West Africans. While widespread journalistic reporting on the group tries to keep up with their activities, few have placed them in a rich historical context to understand how religion and politics intersect. In Boko Haram: The History of an African Jihadist Movement (Princeton University Press, 2017), Alexander Thurston, Visiting Assistant Professor at Georgetown University, traces the origins of the jihadist group through political events, networks of Islamic learning, and the personal charisma of individual religious leaders. In his previous book, Salafism in Nigeria: Islam, Preaching, and Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2017), Thurston provides background on Salafis in Nigeria that enables us to understand Boko Haram as part of a global Salafi movement. In our conversation we discuss the Nigerian religious field, the characteristics of Salafism and its canonization, Boko Haram’s founder Muhammad Yusuf, Nigerian Muslims at the Islamic University of Medina, north/south Nigerian social and political disparities, local Salafi responses to the new leadership of Abubaker Shekau, the 2014 kidnapping of 276 girls, recent ties to ISIS, international intervention, and reflections on religious violence. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska Omaha. He is the author of Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Scripture, and Language in the Han Kitab (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is currently working on a monograph entitled The Cinematic Lives of Muslims, and is the editor of the forthcoming volumes Muslims in the Movies: A Global Anthology (ILEX Foundation) and New Approaches to Islam in Film (Routledge). You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kjpetersen@unomaha.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Boko Haram is one of the most well known global terrorist organizations. They have killed thousands of people and displaced millions of West Africans. While widespread journalistic reporting on the group tries to keep up with their activities, few have placed them in a rich historical context to understand how religion and politics intersect. In Boko Haram: The History of an African Jihadist Movement (Princeton University Press, 2017), Alexander Thurston, Visiting Assistant Professor at Georgetown University, traces the origins of the jihadist group through political events, networks of Islamic learning, and the personal charisma of individual religious leaders. In his previous book, Salafism in Nigeria: Islam, Preaching, and Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2017), Thurston provides background on Salafis in Nigeria that enables us to understand Boko Haram as part of a global Salafi movement. In our conversation we discuss the Nigerian religious field, the characteristics of Salafism and its canonization, Boko Haram’s founder Muhammad Yusuf, Nigerian Muslims at the Islamic University of Medina, north/south Nigerian social and political disparities, local Salafi responses to the new leadership of Abubaker Shekau, the 2014 kidnapping of 276 girls, recent ties to ISIS, international intervention, and reflections on religious violence. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska Omaha. He is the author of Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Scripture, and Language in the Han Kitab (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is currently working on a monograph entitled The Cinematic Lives of Muslims, and is the editor of the forthcoming volumes Muslims in the Movies: A Global Anthology (ILEX Foundation) and New Approaches to Islam in Film (Routledge). You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kjpetersen@unomaha.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Boko Haram is one of the most well known global terrorist organizations. They have killed thousands of people and displaced millions of West Africans. While widespread journalistic reporting on the group tries to keep up with their activities, few have placed them in a rich historical context to understand how religion and politics intersect. In Boko Haram: The History of an African Jihadist Movement (Princeton University Press, 2017), Alexander Thurston, Visiting Assistant Professor at Georgetown University, traces the origins of the jihadist group through political events, networks of Islamic learning, and the personal charisma of individual religious leaders. In his previous book, Salafism in Nigeria: Islam, Preaching, and Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2017), Thurston provides background on Salafis in Nigeria that enables us to understand Boko Haram as part of a global Salafi movement. In our conversation we discuss the Nigerian religious field, the characteristics of Salafism and its canonization, Boko Haram’s founder Muhammad Yusuf, Nigerian Muslims at the Islamic University of Medina, north/south Nigerian social and political disparities, local Salafi responses to the new leadership of Abubaker Shekau, the 2014 kidnapping of 276 girls, recent ties to ISIS, international intervention, and reflections on religious violence. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska Omaha. He is the author of Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Scripture, and Language in the Han Kitab (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is currently working on a monograph entitled The Cinematic Lives of Muslims, and is the editor of the forthcoming volumes Muslims in the Movies: A Global Anthology (ILEX Foundation) and New Approaches to Islam in Film (Routledge). You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kjpetersen@unomaha.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Boko Haram is one of the most well known global terrorist organizations. They have killed thousands of people and displaced millions of West Africans. While widespread journalistic reporting on the group tries to keep up with their activities, few have placed them in a rich historical context to understand how religion and politics intersect. In Boko Haram: The History of an African Jihadist Movement (Princeton University Press, 2017), Alexander Thurston, Visiting Assistant Professor at Georgetown University, traces the origins of the jihadist group through political events, networks of Islamic learning, and the personal charisma of individual religious leaders. In his previous book, Salafism in Nigeria: Islam, Preaching, and Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2017), Thurston provides background on Salafis in Nigeria that enables us to understand Boko Haram as part of a global Salafi movement. In our conversation we discuss the Nigerian religious field, the characteristics of Salafism and its canonization, Boko Haram’s founder Muhammad Yusuf, Nigerian Muslims at the Islamic University of Medina, north/south Nigerian social and political disparities, local Salafi responses to the new leadership of Abubaker Shekau, the 2014 kidnapping of 276 girls, recent ties to ISIS, international intervention, and reflections on religious violence. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska Omaha. He is the author of Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Scripture, and Language in the Han Kitab (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is currently working on a monograph entitled The Cinematic Lives of Muslims, and is the editor of the forthcoming volumes Muslims in the Movies: A Global Anthology (ILEX Foundation) and New Approaches to Islam in Film (Routledge). You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kjpetersen@unomaha.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Boko Haram is one of the most well known global terrorist organizations. They have killed thousands of people and displaced millions of West Africans. While widespread journalistic reporting on the group tries to keep up with their activities, few have placed them in a rich historical context to understand how religion and politics intersect. In Boko Haram: The History of an African Jihadist Movement (Princeton University Press, 2017), Alexander Thurston, Visiting Assistant Professor at Georgetown University, traces the origins of the jihadist group through political events, networks of Islamic learning, and the personal charisma of individual religious leaders. In his previous book, Salafism in Nigeria: Islam, Preaching, and Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2017), Thurston provides background on Salafis in Nigeria that enables us to understand Boko Haram as part of a global Salafi movement. In our conversation we discuss the Nigerian religious field, the characteristics of Salafism and its canonization, Boko Haram’s founder Muhammad Yusuf, Nigerian Muslims at the Islamic University of Medina, north/south Nigerian social and political disparities, local Salafi responses to the new leadership of Abubaker Shekau, the 2014 kidnapping of 276 girls, recent ties to ISIS, international intervention, and reflections on religious violence. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska Omaha. He is the author of Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Scripture, and Language in the Han Kitab (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is currently working on a monograph entitled The Cinematic Lives of Muslims, and is the editor of the forthcoming volumes Muslims in the Movies: A Global Anthology (ILEX Foundation) and New Approaches to Islam in Film (Routledge). You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kjpetersen@unomaha.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Boko Haram is one of the most well known global terrorist organizations. They have killed thousands of people and displaced millions of West Africans. While widespread journalistic reporting on the group tries to keep up with their activities, few have placed them in a rich historical context to understand how...

On this week's podcast, Alexander Thurston speaks about Boko Haram and its origins and growth. Thurston is an Assistant Professor of Teaching for African Studies Program at Georgetown University and a Fellow at the Wilson Center. His new book is Boko Haram: The History of an African Jihadist Movement. "This is my attempt at a documentary history of Boko Haram. To try to draw on especially diverse written sources to reconstruct the trajectory of the movement from the time when the founders were growing up in Nigeria in the 1970s up to close to the present as it was possible to get," said Thurston. "These groups are just very hard to completely eradicate. A proto-state that they carve out can be destroyed. It may take several years, as in the case of ISIS or it may take a very short time, as in the case of Boko Haram. But then after that, you get this long term spate of terrorist attacks. And that's a lot harder to stamp out."