Machine-jihad
There are multiple paths to jihad, most of which take place outside the linear process of radicalization described in studies of its cause. This article discusses the multiple entanglements, back and forth movements, and bifurcations in the paths of Canadians, French, and Belgians, paths whose vanishing points culminate in a decision about whether or not to undertake jihad. The goal is to understand how these individuals came to want to engage with jihad. How were they affected by it and how did they make sense of this desire, which involves multiple (re) positionings that can sometimes lead to the mortuary. Using Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizomic and schizo-analytical approach, I describe the arrangement of these lines, which move across the social field and its actors in a choreography of ruptures, bifurcations, entanglements, jumps, re-territorializations, stops, etc., as they emerge from the life narratives of 25 participants. This is a mapping of solid masses of lines, flexible lines, and lines of flight as well as intensities (affects) ; machine assemblages and machines that are social, abstract, desiring, war machines, revealing the multiple possibilities of existence... a whole jihad-machine.