#WeJamminStill : agential realism and Trinidad and Tobago's absent terrorism narrative
Abstract
This work examines the limitations of Securitisation Theory by applying it to an ethnographic case
study of Trinidad and Tobago – the state with the highest per capita ISIL recruitment rate in the
Western World. It examines the reasons for the absence of a terrorism narrative for that country
until very recently, where one might expect a narrative to have existed for decades. It argues that
securitisation thinkers must continue to extend their arguments, as gaps in the current
approaches are limiting their utility. To make this argument it shows that while securitisation
theory on its own, fails to explain the absence of a narrative due to ineffectively providing a
means to address contextual considerations, Agential Realism is able to effectively integrate the
necessary historical and cultural realities through the quantum thinking informing its diffractive
methodology and its hauntological approach to time and space.
In applying both securitisation theories and Agential Realism to the case, it can be seen that
history and culture are deeply entangled with the security politics of Trinidad and Tobago as a
post-colonial state – as they are for the many other former colonies which make up the global
landscape. This work shows that conventional approaches to understanding security in Trinidad
and Tobago are limited in the questions which they can answer and that if the discipline seeks to
have more profound understandings of a wide range of actors and be truly ‘global’, it must be
willing to continue to push the expanding boundaries of critical orthodoxy.
Type
Thesis, PhD Doctor of Philosophy
Rights
Embargo Date: 2020-11-13
Embargo Reason: Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Print copy and Chapter 5 of electronic copy restricted until 13th November 2020
Description
Electronic version excludes material for which permission has not been granted by the rights holderCollections
Description of related resources
An opinion questionnaire on Trinidad and Tobago and terrorism (Thesis data) Alexander-Owen, M.K., University of St Andrews, 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17630/1c3af0ad-d65f-4d54-a684-7c60a1c6a895Related resources
https://doi.org/10.17630/1c3af0ad-d65f-4d54-a684-7c60a1c6a895Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.