Worth many sins: Al-Shabaab’s shifting relationship with Kenyan women

Leveraging identity to overcome temporal and financial limitations in rapid ethnography in criminological research

“…In terms of benefiting from shared identities, by presenting herself as a modest and feminine woman, Katharine was able to interview women, a significantly under-accessed population, in the community about their experiences with crime and extremism. Doing so resulted in a much more holistic picture of illicit dynamics and allowed a narrative of agency to emerge that was previously lacking in the literature (Petrich & Donnelly, 2019). In her research on illegal tiger skin suppliers in Lhasa, China, sociologist Rebecca Wong (2015) also found that her gender identity was a facilitating factor in eliciting responses from suppliers who felt a “sense of pride in their achievements” (p. 699).…”

When they joined: restricted agency and victimhood in Kenyan women’s pathways into Al-Shabaab

“…The mobilisation of Kenyans to Al-Shabaab has been enabled by these grievances, anchored in historical tensions and conflict dynamics coupled with a particular interpretation of Islamic sources, and fuelled by financial and material incentives, coercion and the use of online tools (Omenma et al 2020: 11-14;Papale 2020). Although, at first glance, it appears that men were the key targets, given the group's rhetoric about protecting women, women were also included in certain circumstances (Petrich & Donnelly 2019: 1170. A male former Al-Shabaab participant who had played a senior role in the mobilisation of Kenyans into the group explained that women's unique abilities were an asset: While many women went either to join their husbands or to marry a Mujahid, there were brave women, such as the white widow, who plan attacks.…”