ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the construction and operation of gendered orientalist identities in official US 'War on Terror' discourse, exploring the ways in which official US 'War on Terror' discourse is shaped by gendered and orientalist logics that create and organise identity categories such as self/other, combatant/victim, liberator/oppressor, barbaric/civilised, and the 'proper' placement of groups of people within these categories. It begins the analysis by exploring the construction of a US 'Self' or national identity in official 'War on Terror' discourse. The chapter details the construction of a US 'Self' in this discourse before considering how discursive intervention is enabled through specific narratives that draw on dominant constructions of 'Self' and 'Other'. Unpacking the role of these in constructing a 'Self' in official US 'War on Terror' discourse, the chapter examines the articulation of authority and interpellation as enabled through discourses of 'US national identity' that are themselves gendered and racialised.
