Counter-terrorism training “at your kitchen table”: the promotion of “CT citizens” and the securitisation of everyday life in the UK

Abstract

The growing call for public participation in counter-terrorism in Britain is reflected by the number of recent campaigns directed towards different sectors of the population and, increasingly, towards “ordinary” citizens. However, there has been a lack of research examining how counter-radicalisation campaigns seek to target the whole population and have an impact on everyday subjectivities and actions. Drawing on studies on governmentality, this article examines the promotion of the “CT citizen” as a distinctive political agent and social identity embedded in the participation of mass surveillance and the normalisation of pre-emptive security logics. Based on a critical discourse analysis of the most recent official counter-terrorism and counter-radicalisation websites and e-learning materials (Let’s Talk About It, Educate Against Hate, Action Counters Terrorism, and the Prevent duty), I show how citizens are being inscribed as counter-terrorism officials through discourses of responsibility, care, awareness, empowerment, and action. This article explores the role of British counter-terrorism in the production of new models of citizenship based on a generalised culture of suspicion and in the participation in security duties previously reserved to the authorities. The discussion highlights ultimately that the securitisation of everyday life and the inscription of individuals in “national security” results in the depoliticisation of both the civil society and political violence.