Abstract

This thesis analyzes how anti-radicalization practices came into being in contemporary Montreal and in Quebec by relying on access to information requests, semi-conducted interviews, and attending various seminars and discussions. The purpose of this thesis is to address how the construction of the radicalization phenomenon becomes enchained with the establishment of institutionalized counter practices, ensuing public tensions among provincial ministries and local community organizations, and the racialization of preventative and detection programs. This research begins by reviewing the literature on radicalization/terrorism studies, critical security studies, and critical race studies. Next, the chapters reflect on how the radicalization discourse in Quebec is conceived and produced through the elaboration of definitions, causal factors, and models and how such knowledge production becomes institutionalized by the provincial government and the Center for the Prevention of Radicalization leading to Violence (CPRLV); on how the materialization of security and preventative practices proliferates through contested relationships and tensions; and on how race shapes anti-radicalization programs. I argue that the knowledge production involved in instituting anti-radicalization practices in Montreal and in Quebec by states and other powerful organizations in turn creates tensions in public discourses as well as racializes visible minorities, notably Muslim bodies. As such, this work contributes to contemporary surveillance and race studies.