ABSTRACT
Harnessing critical methods in terrorism studies explicitly broadens the scope of conceptual analysis in the field by encapsulating diversity in language and conceptualization. CTS contributes to the emancipation of terrorism research and counterterrorism practice by robustly creating a deliberate pathway to spurring divergent viewpoints about terrorism. Nonetheless, CTS deserves enrichment in order to engage with the nuances of epistemic gaps, questioning the positionality of knowledge production and indigeneity in methods. Positionality explores the inclusion of subjugated voices in the geopolitics of knowledge production as indigeneity interrogates systemic claims to the social constructions. Consequently, indigenizing CTS seeks to confront hierarchical [mis]conceptions of subjectivity that place primacy of knowledge production with the liberal European self as the adjudicators of scientific knowledge. Given that indigeneity holds wide-ranging definitions encompassing issues of identity, positionality, subjectivity and marginalization, this chapter examines the nuances of the concept from the perspective of transformation and resistance. Indigeneity in CTS, thus, opens reflections like how European colonialism has transformed, or not, the knowledge structures of the current world. We contextualize indigeneity within a wider examination of the politics of knowledge production and argue for the need to reject Eurocentric dispositions that lock CTS within a narrow scope of analysis.
