Lived experiences of Radicalized individuals and terrorism in Kenya

Abstract

In Kenya, terrorism especially the one perpetrated by home-grown citizens who have been radicalized remain a major societal concern. In reacting to this problem, the government has focused on structural factors that make individuals vulnerable to radicalization and terrorism, and have resorted to deterrence measures through enactment of anti-terrorism laws and policies. These strategies, however, lack causal mechanism that explain why only some individuals in the collectivity become radicalized in specific contextual environments. To investigate this, the study came up with the following three objectives; first, to investigate how the radicalized individuals make meaning of themselves; second, to analyze how the contextual factors influence the social meaning formation of themselves as radicals; and third, to assess how the social meaning of themselves influence their action towards violence and terrorism. Data for this study was collected from 20 purposively selected research participants legally convicted of terrorism related offences in prisons in Kenya namely, Kamiti, Langata women, Naivasha, Shimo la Tewa and Manyani. The study was guided by the social construction and the interpretative phenomenological analysis theories, as they were best suited in studying individuals’ lived experiences. The study used in-depth and key informant interviews as methods of data collection, with in-depth and key informant interview guides as the preferred tools. The collected data was transcribed and thematically analyzed. The study found that the legally convicted radicalized individuals defined themselves as liberators, as self-empowered, as seekers of justice and as self-reconstructed individuals from humiliation. These self-definitions were influenced by their everyday lived experiences in their political, social and economic contexts. The study also found that they defined their social action of violence as moral action, as affirmation to group identity, as means of liberation and as a means of bringing change in society. The study concluded that individuals become radicalized/terrorist as a means of attaining the collectively defined expectations of a social group, within the constraints of certain structural factors in a particular contextual context. The study recommends that government counter-terrorism policies and actions (such as training programmes) should include aspects of understanding the contextual factors that make individuals resort to terrorism and the meanings that such individuals bestow on themselves.