In Danger or Dangerous? : A discourse analysis of representations of Swedish women and children affiliated with ISIS after the breakdown of the 'caliphate'

Abstract: After the fall of ISIS ‘caliphate’, Sweden and other European countries are struggling with how to handle the group of people who left Europe to join the terrorist organisation and now seek to return. In traditional narratives of gender and war, women and children are commonly perceived as innocent victims in need of protection. This narrative now seems to be challenged by European countries hesitation to repatriate, not only men, but also women and children affiliated with ISIS. Drawing on securitization, feminist and postcolonial theory, this thesis examines political discourses surrounding women and children in Sweden after the fall of the ‘caliphate’ and considers how this seemingly discursive transformation allows for exceptional measures. The analysis finds that these women are foremost ascribed meaning in relation to the men of ISIS and appear to be portrayed as guilty perpetrators rather than victims. While the lives of the children are construed as more valuable, they are yet associated with different risks and problems. In these meaning-making processes, it is possible to identify hierarchies in relation to gender and race in which women and children are perceived as ‘the other’ and, to some extent, reabsorbed into the threatening mass of ISIS terrorists that Sweden needs protection from.