After the Caliphate – Mobilization of women and men in the Salafi-jihadi environment in Sweden

This project investigates, with a specific focus on gender, how men and women in the Salafi-jihadi environment in the Swedish context mobilize after the territorial collapse of the so-called Caliphate established by Islamic State (IS).

Because IS is no longer defined by the boundaries of the physical Caliphate, and because the Salafi-jihadist milieus in Sweden continue to grow while at the same time becoming more hidden, understanding how Salafi-jihadist environments mobilize (i.e. recruit and sustain supporters) in a Swedish context after the fall of the Caliphate has become urgent.

The current COVID-19 pandemic, which IS has exploited to revive itself, has only emphasized the need to understand the new dynamics of mobilization and mobilization narratives in the post-Caliphate period.Previous research demonstrates that women and men are active in different social settings: men occupying public spaces, and women - who are often confined to the private sphere - on social media.

This project consists of three substudies with a clear gender perspective. Substudy 1 investigates the new dynamics of mobilizing men in the offline space (e.g. mosques, Muslim associations).

Substudy 2 investigates female-specific textual and visual pro-Salafi-jihadist mobilization narratives in unofficial propaganda on open-source social media targeting Swedish women, i.e. propaganda produced by individuals who support violent Islamist extremism, in contrast to official propaganda from terror organizations.

Finally, substudy 3 investigates IS’s exploitation of the COVID-19 pandemic through unofficial as well as official IS propaganda narratives disseminated on open-source social media to mobilize men and women.Altogether, this project contributes urgent empirical knowledge of gender-specific mobilization in the Swedish Salafi-jihadist environment in order to understand how men and women are recruited, motivated, attracted, and sustained in the milieu after the collapse of the Caliphate.