Abstract
This chapter asks how mothers respond to the terrorist actions of their children. The disparate literature on mothers of terrorists suggests that they might express deep emotions, affirm their children’s actions, or serve as a form of CVE (countering violent extremism) as they assist other mothers who are dissuading their children from radicalization. This chapter draws together the literature to create a framework of possible responses by mothers, and it presents a qualitative content analysis of the responses of 138 mothers whose children were living in the United States and/or were apprehended by the United States while fighting or assisting Islamist extremists. I find that many mothers respond with emotions, but that they largely do not serve as supporters of terrorism nor as activists who further CVE. However, mothers are agentic in their responses to their own individual children as they attempt to maintain contact with them, advocate for them in court, and take care of them during house arrest and/or probation.
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Ortbals, C.D. (2023). Mothers Will Stop at Nothing: The Responses of Mothers of Terrorists. In: Arıboğan, D.Ü., Khelghat-Doost, H. (eds) Constructing Motherhood Identity Against Political Violence. Contributions to International Relations. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36538-6_3
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