ABSTRACT
This chapter exoplores various readings and approaches to the phenomenon of terrorism that are likely to produce antagonistic intellectuals. An ethnographic approach to the phenomenon of political terrorism will in fact put emphasis on both sides of the equation: on the structure that conditions the militant's actions; and on the purposes that guide and fool the actor. The terrorism experts' fundamental claim about Basque violence was that it is terrorism, which means that it belongs to the same category that includes other European and non-European groups. Thus, two-thirds of the report is given to describing such other terrorist groups, the assumption being that this amounts to describing to ETA, since they all belong to the same category of behaviour. An assessment of the rhetorical aspects of the discourse requires close attention to the writing of terrorism and the narrative plots in which the arguments are couched.
