Jihad in the City

Recent work on jihadi terrorism has established plausible correlations between involvement in jihadism and previous involvement in petty crime – the so called criminality-terrorism nexus. In particular, terrorist biographies tend to show more and more continuity between petty criminal and gang related activities in parks and the emergence of jihadi cliques, as well as the phenomenon of foreign fighters. At the same time, recent attacks, but also empirical studies have revealed that jihadism tends to emerge in particular geographical units in and between cities. Urban residential segregation of low income groups in deprived neighbourhoods and lack of indoor space have been shown to lead to the relegation of teenagers to (often neglected) public spaces, where they compete with other societal groups over space. In this context, vandalism can function as a way of appropriation of space, but may well contribute to the emergence of violent behaviour. We apply these insights to empirical cases of youth radicalization in Austria and thereby contribute with a theoretically and conceptually founded study on the relationship between space and jihadi violence.