Exploring mechanisms of whiteness: how counterterrorism practitioners disrupt anti-racist expertise

Abstract

Abstract This article situates the subject of the academic–practitioner (AP) exchange within an International Relations-orientated critique of the imperial dynamics of counterterrorism practices and racial subjugation. It uses an analytical framework that upholds the significance of racial hierarchy to knowledge production. A key contribution of this article is to situate the AP nexus within the circumstances of liberal democratic counterterrorism regimes, to demonstrate how race becomes meaningful to the knowledge that is produced about Islamophobia. The main argument of this article is that in present policy debates concerning the existence of systemic racism, one of the mechanisms enabling counterterrorism practitioners to regulate the AP exchange is that of institutionalized whiteness. Exploring two scenarios of AP exchanges in the United Kingdom and Canada, where counterterrorism practitioners were challenged to reconcile with academic explanations of Islamophobia as a systemic issue, this article uses colour-line inspired critiques of white logic to identify instances where anti-racist knowledge was subjugated in the name of imperialism. The article finds that in each scenario discussed, practitioners demonstrate trajectories of white logic by contesting the suitability of anti-racist knowledge put forward by academics, on the basis of racial hierarchy and self-aggrandizement. It concludes by discussing how a lack of practitioner–academic consensus continues to affect the dissemination of knowledge concerning systemic racism, thus prompting considerations of what this means for an anti-racist future.