ABSTRACT
Within this chapter, we examine recent cases involving individuals who do not fit contemporary stereotypes of the type of immigrant youth typically believed to be susceptible to domestic radicalization. These cases, we suggest, offer support for the position that terrorism researchers need to re-evaluate how we study this phenomenon. In the pages that follow, we discuss current themes in the literature on domestic radicalization, before invoking the concept of the “grey cygnet” event to show how anomalous cases reveal limitations in existing models of domestic radicalization, which often indiscriminately lump together individuals of very different backgrounds and thus potentially very different motives and pathways.
