Advancing a feminist approach to "child terrorism" CSTPV Seminar featuring Katherine Brown, Professor of Religion, Gender and Global Security, University of Birmingham

This paper critically explores the intricate relationships between agency, responsibility, and gender in the context of children associated with terrorism. It primarily addresses children linked to ISIS, but its arguments extend to other groups. The discussion begins with the conceptualization of childhood in international relations and its connections, or lack thereof, to violence. It then critiques two prevalent arguments in current research that frame children's involvement as victims. While acknowledging the normative principles of these positions, the paper contends they are limited. It first considers the concept of ‘adverse childhood environments' (ACE) which has gained attention with European social workers' involvement in the rehabilitation of women and children from Iraq and Syria, and in broader Exit initiatives. I offer a critique of its family-centric focus and the gendered assumptions built into that. Second, the paper challenges the framing of trauma to understand children's agency—or lack thereof—arguing that it limits comprehension through its medicalization and pathologization of violent extremism, and that, in common with other behavioral sciences approaches, it overlooks gender considerations. Finally, the paper proposes a feminist perspective to comprehend children's engagement in terrorism, emphasizing feminist conceptions of agency and responsibility as relational, contextualized in the everyday, and negotiated.