Toolkit 7.3: Using Dual Perspectives to Explore Concepts of Radicalization, Methods of Enhancing Social Support and Cohesion, and Uncover the Impact of Online Harms

April 2024

Abstract

This toolkit uses a holistic approach to investigate the concepts of extremism and radicalisation, and to examine the barriers to social cohesion, particularly in the context of digital spaces. To this end, we interviewed 30 young people across 15 countries in our consortium and 13 practitioners engaged in deradicalisation work in Germany, France, Israel, and the UK. The aim of the interviews with young people was threefold. First, we sought to investigate experiences of marginalisation, perceived injustices, and social identity as contributing to radicalisation. We also explored how young people make sense of these mundane interactions. Third, we explored lay-beliefs in youth around radicalisation, extremism, and political violence. Six themes emerged from our interviews. First, young people saw radicalisation differently to official state, political, and academic definitions, defining it as an attitudinal phenomenon. Young people reported many negative experiences with extremist content in digital spaces, perceiving these spaces as amplifiers of minoritising processes and as inevitable places of online harms (e.g., racism, hate speech). We also found that for some participants, LGBTQIA+ and feminist movements were experienced as threats. Finally, young people elevated education as a means of countering radicalisation and the dangers of online harms. We adapted a visualisation task to explore metaphors of marginalisation by asking young people to depict how they place themselves within society; our findings illustrate shared themes of exclusion and injustices. In our interviews with practitioners, we sought to explore how social workers involved in deradicalization programs for youth understand and use in their work the key concepts in the field: radicalization and extremism. We found that practitioners understand radicalization as a process that has relatively little to do with how authorities - both national and EU - understand it. Rather than a process that occurs mainly because of the spread of threatening religious beliefs and political ideologies, practitioners saw radicalization as the result of structural factors, the neglect of social policies and social issues in societies experiencing growing inequalities, decreasing political opportunities, increasing perceptions of minorities as cultural others, and the spread of conspiracy theories due to the deterioration of public education. However, while stressing structural factors, practitioners also underlined that these are beyond their control and expressed frustration over the lack of means at their disposal. Extremism as a concept was seen as particularly unhelpful because of its inherent normativity and adoption by law enforcement agencies, making it impossible to use in their day-to-day work with young people. Practitioners stated that rather than using "official language" in their daily interactions, they prefer to talk about hate and violence, racism, right-wing extremism, and other similar concepts that are clearer to their clients while still indicating problematic behaviour. Finally, best practices for deradicalization have most often meant for our practitioners building the alternative networks and especially the trusting relationships with young people that are typical of social work in general