Foreign fighters as well as terrorism are not new phenomena. However, the history of foreign fighters cannot comprehensively explain current-day patterns of recruitment to violent Islamist groups that use terrorism as a tactic. In this talk, I will present a research project that aims to explore, first, the methods of recruitment applied to the Kyrgyz Republic and the United Kingdom by violent Islamist organizations and, second, the motivations of individuals from these two countries to join these entities. Comparing the two cases/countries shows that the flow of different individuals to Islamist militant groups has become a problem in different environments regardless of social, economic, and political levels of development. Currently, I am preparing for my fieldwork that will be carried out first in the Kyrgyz Republic and then in the United Kingdom where I am going to conduct interviews with former fighters.

Almakan Orozobekova is a PhD Candidate at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Research Group – How ‘Terrorists’ Learn. She received her BA degree in International Relations from the International University of Central Asia. She is also a graduate of the OSCE Academy, the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, and the University of Geneva where she gained MA degrees. Previously, she was an intern at the OSCE Conflict Prevention Centre, Policy Support Service in Vienna, Austria.

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Zeit & Ort

Monday, 6 February  |  6 p.m.

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
R 507
Invalidenstraße 118

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