Civil Society Carving Spaces of Resistance in Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism Policies and Practices

Summary

This research explores the discursive strategies of resistance employed by civil society actors in the preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) policy landscape. Using critical discourse analysis and ethnographic methods, this study examines how civil society constructs counter-hegemonic discourses and P/CVE practices. Whilst civil society plays a crucial role in peacebuilding, research has also shown that they are entangled in a complex web of power relations. As intermediaries between the global, national, and local levels they engage in discursive practices that could both reinforce and contest dominant discourses and practices. This paper conceptualises these practices as occurring through multiple sites of power, where civil society acts as producers, consumers, targets, and beneficiaries of knowledge and practices. Within these subject positions, they negotiate with dominant (often eurocentric) discourses through strategies of vernacularisation, appropriation, and counterarguments. While these tactics may not entirely result in discursive shifts, they however open space for critical negotiation with dominant discourses which is a crucial step to resisting power structures.

Keywords

civil society, resistance, P/CVE, policies, practices