Between Politics and Law: The Question of the European female Islamic State returnees

This research project adopts an interdisciplinary approach
to investigate the question: How are the European women
that joined the Islamic State being dealt with by national
governments and international institutions? This research
will apply gender and socio-legal approaches to the
counterterrorism and judicial practices as well as
international cooperation of the UK, France, and the
European Union regarding the return, prosecution,
conviction, and reintegration of female returnees.
Key questions to be investigated will be: 1) Whether and to
what extent these counterterrorism and judicial responses
reflect a gendered application of legal conventions,
institutional norms, and policy frameworks? 2) To what
extent the international legal conventions and domestic
legal frameworks applied to these women, including but
not limited to rights to citizenship and conceptual
distinctions such as that between combatants and noncombatants,
reflect a gendered understanding of the
capacity of female IS adherents for ideological conviction,
of the particular roles attributed to them, and of their
agency? 3) How is the degree of risk these individuals are
seen to pose to society framed and calculated, and what
are the factors that influence this framing? This project
seeks to contribute to the academic discourse on gender
and violence and to facilitate the creation of coherent and
just national and multi-lateral responses to the case of
female returnees.