Articles | Volume 72, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-72-255-2017
https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-72-255-2017
Standard article
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05 Jul 2017
Standard article |  | 05 Jul 2017

„Im Namen der Sicherheit“ – Staatsschutzprozesse als Orte politisch-geographischer Forschung, dargestellt an Beispielen aus Gerichtsverfahren gegen Kämpfer und UnterstützerInnen der Terrororganisation „Islamischer Staat“

Sarah Klosterkamp and Paul Reuber

Abstract. In the last ten years, several uprising organizations such as the so called Islamic State have become a new challenge for civil societies in facing and defeating international terrorism. This paper, as part of a bigger research project, presents theoretical and methodical approaches for analyzing those organizations in the way they operate abroad and how they are connected with foreign fighters, sympathizers and supporters. By using ethnographic tools, we have observed and analyzed 14 Islamic State-related criminal proceedings in front of high-secured regional appeal courts. The paper presents the first results of this study in showing how German islamists are using transnational logistic networks to join or support terrorist organizations (Part 1) and gives insight into the way the logics of jurisdiction in democratic societies constitute them as threatening subjects (Part 2). In this way, it addresses a new approach of court-based research from the perspective of political geography.