Description
In the last years, Kenya has become a laboratory for soft counterterrorism measures, particularly anti-radicalization programs that stand at the intersection of peacebuilding, development and humanitarian interventions with the objective to prevent violent extremism in so-called “at-risk” communities. At the core of these programs lies however a focus on the individual’s personal grievances that provide fertile ground for radicalization rather than historical injustices. In addressing these issues concerning the “intimate”, women are thought to hold a special role by leading trauma healing sessions and signaling risks among the communities. This article argues that these soft counterterrorism measures penetrate the intimate sphere and therefore directly intervene in the “everyday”. By translating “at-risk” groups to “problem-bodies” in hard-to-govern spaces, this article explores these prevention programs as governing tools to domesticate and pacify certain populations in Kenya through “self-help” initiatives, which are crucial to the re-engineering of the social composition. Finally, these prevention programs do no longer solely concentrate on managing bodies. Instead, they introduce the notion of resilience, which points at a shift to the mind and consequently produces new subjectivities. The article suggests that women are important actors within these new mechanisms of governance, which no longer just manage bodies but this time – the mind.
