Going underground: excitement and edgework in violent extremism

This paper explores the emotional reactions of violent extremists as they undertake various backstage performative acts. Deception and evasion tactics are sometimes implemented by violent extremists in order to avoid detection and protect their networks or plans. This demonstrates the agentic power of negative (background, missing, latent or hidden) phenomena in driving social change: actors can exercise resistance while apparently ‘doing nothing’. On the other hand, empirical research, although scant, demonstrates that alongside some of the traditional considerations around terrorism, there also needs to be reflection of the phenomenological foreground and the existential attractions that often govern peoples’ emotions. Building on the work of Simmel, we consider excitement to examine the increased existential attractiveness, fascination, and allure of social activities that are held out of reach. We argue that this could encourage people to engage in what Lyng describes as edgework, whereby members perform in highly dangerous, transgressive, and violent activities. This paper explores the fascination, mystery, and seduction of remaining undetected and aims to provide insights\ninto the complex interplay between edgework, excitement, and violent extremism. Alongside theoretically developing a highly under-researched academic topic, this paper has wider real-world implications for counter-terrorism policy and practice.<p></p>