Reimagined Territory: A New Theory of Terrorist Geographies
[Thesis]
Christopher Fuhriman
Medina, Richard
The University of Utah
2017
306
Committee members: Brewer, Simon; Hepner, George; Linke, Andrew; Lohman, Andrew
Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-1-369-77765-9
Ph.D.
Geography
The University of Utah
2017
This research proposes a new theoretical concept of reimagined territory for application in the study of terrorism and other forms of political violence. Geographic theories of space and place, geopolitics, and multidisciplinary terrorism studies provide the theoretical framework for this dissertation. A mixed-method approach comprised of computer-aided content analysis, manual content analysis, cartographic visualization, and geographic narrative analysis is applied to ISIS's Dabiq magazine as a case study of the reimagined territory of a terrorist group. The results demonstrate the utility of the theoretical concept of reimagined territory in examining the ideology and goals of a given terrorist movement. A second case study of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's Inspire magazine validates the methodology and the general applicability of the theoretical concept.
Geography
Social sciences;Content analysis;Geographic narrative analysis;Qualitative gis;Terrorism