The Stains of Innocence: Genealogy, Non-Combatants and Terrorism

This paper claims that genealogies can play an important role in engaging the imagination of scholars who research political violence. In general terms, we may characterize genealogies as providing a critical lens through which specific concepts or practises that are frequently perceived as natural and a-historical can be shown to have contingent and contested origins. Genealogies propose counter-histories that complement, challenge and correct standard narratives of the emergence of concepts and practices. The paper uses this counter-historical framework to achieve a clearer sense of what is involved in so-called object-focused definitions of terrorism. This specific class of definitions of terrorism foregrounds the kinds of target typically attacked by terrorist actors. Any attack that intentionally targets non-combatants can accordingly be described as terrorist. This makes both state and non-state actors potential candidates for spreading terrorism. While the paper refrains from directly questioning the merits of this definitional strategy, it employs a genealogical perspective and draws on recent findings in feminist literature to problematize the notion of ‘innocence’. As various authors have demonstrated, the figure of the non-combatant possesses a peculiar history that has rarely been attended to: starting with Hugo Grotius’s description of who should be spared violence in war, the non-combatant’s normative character is based on distinctly gendered presuppositions that are rendered invisible in the extant definitions of terrorism. Consequently, we need to adjust our argumentative approach if we wish to propose that terrorism can be best captured by the targeting of those who are innocent. The paper concludes by teasing out the wider implications of genealogy for reflections on political violence. It maintains that counter-histories de-familiarize widely held assumptions about foundational values and thereby facilitate a more realistic commitment to norms such as the protection of non-combatants.