Can the Terrorist Be Grieved?

Abstract This article analyzes the frames of violence and suffering at play when perpetrators of violence are labeled terrorists. Building on Judith Butler's notion of grievability, it proposes the concept of forbidden grief to understand how the terrorist is constituted as an inhuman subject. The article argues that the terrorist is the result of a process of radical dehumanization that frames them as an existential threat against whom eradication remains the only possible solution. Taking as examples the attacks in France (November 13, 2015) and Barcelona (August 17, 2017), the article analyzes the difficulties that the term terrorist presents for equal grief, inherently dividing the population between grievable lives and those whose grief will be forbidden. Concluding by considering the contemporary violence in the Gaza Strip, the article examines whether there is space in the public sphere for such mourning, or even for this question, and how the notion of terrorist can be used to limit grief and to justify extreme forms of violence.