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"Family and Jihadism": an innovative approach to the issue of religious radicalisation

on the January 5, 2022

In the book "Family and Jihadism. A Socio-Anthropological Approach to the French Experience", the sociologist Jérôme Ferret, lecturer in sociology with HDR at the University of Toulouse Capitole (IDETCOM), focuses on the social and family environment in the jihadist radicalisation process. Considering that the "family" is one of the pillars of socialisation to jihadism, he proposes, together with Farhad Khosrokhavar, director of studies at the EHESS and a world-renowned specialist in political Islam and jihadism, a vision that allows for a different understanding of the forms of radicalisation and its causes.

The digital magazine "Exploreur" publishes this January an article (Louart, Carina, "La radicalisation, une affaire de famille?", Exploreur, January 05, 2022, https://exploreur.univ-toulouse.fr/la-radicalisation-une-affaire-de-famille) dedicated to the controversial phenomenon of "radicalisation" in the social sciences.

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This subject is commonly treated globally by academic disciplines such as geopolitics or psychology or analysed in research works from a rather security perspective. Sociologists, on the other hand, offer more nuanced analyses, as is the case of professors Jerome Ferret and Farhat Khosrokhavar in their latest book "Family and Jihadism. A Socio-Anthropological Approach to the French Experience".

This book is the result of three years of empirical research carried out in the south of France, mainly in the Toulouse region but also in the north of Spain, with families and social workers in these areas.
Without looking for a single causality or strict determinism, the authors have focused their analysis on the "jihadist person" inserted in a relational and affective network, and in particular the family. The pathways to jihadism are thus often very personal and, as the research detailed in this book demonstrates, these pathways are intimately linked to the experiences and imaginings of the family.


About the authors :
Jerome Ferret ©Luis Faci Muñoz - Jerome Ferret ©Luis Faci Muñoz
  • Jérôme Ferret is a lecturer in sociology with an HDR obtained at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) (guarantor Michel Wieviorka) at the University Toulouse Capitole, laboratory IDETCOM and Deputy Director of the  Maison des Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société de Toulouse (MSHS-T, UAR 3414, Cnrs). Currently on a CNRS delegation to LATTS, Paris, École des Ponts Paris Tech. He is the scientific co-director of the RadiRégu (Radicalities and Regulations) expertise platform, a Toulouse-based centre of expertise on radical phenomena and their regulations. His research work focuses on political violence and anti-terrorist public action.

  • Farhad Khosrokhavar is is Director of Studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris, France and a world-renowned expert on political Islam and jihadism.. His research focuses on the sociology of contemporary Iran, on the social and anthropological problems of Islam in France, and on the philosophy of social sciences.
Updated on January 7, 2022