Achieving Security by Suicide - A Way of Ensuring a Forever Jihad?

Sammanfattning

This thesis aims to analyze how identity and potential ontological insecurity are expressed in the Islamic State’s narrative and how this may explain the use of suicide attacks. This is done by analyzing the language in the Islamic State’s official magazines between 2014 to 2017 through a theoretical lens of ontological security. The theory of ontological security centers around the threat to an organization’s identity rather than a physical threat, which can lead to existential anxiety and result in irrational behavior. The study uses narrative analysis to structure the empirical material, which focuses on how story-telling shapes our understanding and meaning of the world we live in. Based on the theory of ontological security, four themes are structuring the analysis: the construction of “the other” and “the self”, gender roles, religion as an identity, and chosen traumas and glories. The results show that the Islamic State’s ontological insecurity results from an increase in liberal views and thoughts that differ from Islam. To regain their ontological security, the organization creates an identity based on war and conflict at the expense of their physical security. This shows that suicide attacks are used to strengthen their identity and ontological security by creating a continuous conflict.