Speaker
Description
Prevent is gendered to the core, with the absence of gender in policy incompatible with the reality of practice. Whilst gender has been minimally addressed in counterterrorism policing research, it has been largely limited to viewing Prevent as a feminised policy (Schmidt, 2022; Bahadur Lamb, 2014). Prevent practitioners are central to the implementation of counterterrorism yet required to use discretion and structured professional judgement to operate in the pre-criminal space. As practitioners often operate with rationalities and traditions that are not fixed by institutional rules, research is needed on how these gendered perspectives shape the policing and implementation of Prevent policy. Therefore, this research explores the intersectional gendered dimensions of risk and vulnerability with a focus on how policy impacts the policing of Prevent from the perspective of Prevent practitioners. Using a Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis of Prevent policy and practitioner interviews, this research proposes the use of gender as a critical framework for researching counterterrorism. Exploring the realities of feminist methodologies in practitioner-centred research, this paper examines power and decision-making through a gendered lens to explore the gendered constructions of Muslim women in Prevent policy and policing.
| Institutional Affiliation | Royal Holloway, University of London |
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