Precarious multiplicity: France, ‘foreign fighters’ and the containment of difference
| Author | Xavier Mathieu |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00108367221098489 |
| Published date | 01 September 2022 |
| Date | 01 September 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00108367221098489
Cooperation and Conflict
2022, Vol. 57(3) 311 –328
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/00108367221098489
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Precarious multiplicity:
France, ‘foreign fighters’ and
the containment of difference
Xavier Mathieu
Abstract
This article investigates the portrayal by French policy-makers of the so-called Islamic State ‘foreign
fighters’. I provide an in-depth analysis of the discursive construction of these ‘foreign fighters’
as different and detached from the (French) Self. I do so through a questioning of the notion
of multiplicity, revealing how it exists precariously and the consequences this precariousness
has on the notion itself. First, multiplicity emerges in ‘strange’ places as identities are being
remodelled through new combinations. Second, the coexistence implied by multiplicity needs to
be complexified to account for the way it helps preserve but also sometimes erase difference (and
thus multiplicity itself). Finally, because of the precariousness of multiplicity, unexpected outcomes
can be produced by the encounter with difference (such as the policy of non-repatriation of the
‘foreign fighters’). Overall, multiplicity can be usefully questioned by looking at these instances
of instability and doubt. As such, this article shares the concerns expressed by critical scholars
that multiplicity recreates problematic distinctions between inside and outside. As a response,
my analysis contributes to an understanding of multiplicity as always in the making, revealing how
various discursive strategies are used to temporarily and imperfectly stabilise boundaries.
Keywords
difference, fighters, France, ISIS, multiplicity, terrorism
Introduction
While ‘societal multiplicity’ is now used by a large number of scholars, one difficulty
keeps resurfacing: as noticed in the introduction to this Special Issue, the term ‘society’
is imperfect. Although ‘empty of particular historical content’ (and as such adapted to the
wide variations in societies that have historically existed), an uneasiness persists about
the term and its implications. Indeed, the idea of diverse and interacting societies still
relies on a separation between inside and outside – a separation that critical IR scholars
have long rejected.1 In fact, the notion of ‘societal multiplicity’ is not guilty of returning
Corresponding author:
Xavier Mathieu, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3BX, UK.
Email: x.mathieu@liverpool.ac.uk
1098489CAC0010.1177/00108367221098489Cooperation and ConflictMathieu
research-article2022
Article
312 Cooperation and Conflict 57(3)
us to a world of reified discrete units that are always and already separated; for Rosenberg
and Tallis, societies are always entangled. But the notion of ‘separation’ is still essential
to the idea of multiplicity, making its adoption by critical scholars difficult (see the cri-
tiques of Drieschová (2019) and Koddenbrock (2020)).
In this article, the notion of ‘societal multiplicity’ is used in a way that fully embraces
these entanglements and avoids the risk of reifying the societies that constitute multiplic-
ity. I argue that multiplicity can be a critical tool when (1) it is fully open to the precarity
or vulnerability of becoming ‘with others’ (Kurki, 2020) and when (2) the inside–outside
distinction is problematised as the result (and not as the starting point) of the analysis. As
such, this article addresses the challenge of using multiplicity while avoiding reification.
In other words, and if multiplicity always exists, it never pre-exists the (dis)entanglements
of various ‘societies’ and should not be understood as a starting point but rather as an
always precarious and temporary result.
To develop this contribution, I focus on the phenomenon of ‘foreign fighters’. While
not new,2 the ‘foreign fighters’ have recently come to occupy an important place in the
security discourses of a number of Western states. Yet the very definition of ‘foreign
fighter’ reveals how a critical approach to multiplicity is necessary. Defining the concept
of ‘foreign fighters’ is a complex task, and even the actual ‘fighting’ done by the ‘foreign
fighters’ has been an object of debate – with some scholars preferring to use terms such as
‘activists’, ‘volunteers’ or ‘insurgents’ (Malet, 2013: 9) as they enable considering the
activities of the ‘foreign fighters’ beyond an exclusive focus on fighting (Moore and
Tumelty, 2008). More importantly for multiplicity, the second element of the concept –
‘foreign’ – is equally elusive, with these individuals being citizens of the countries which
nevertheless label them as ‘foreign’. Some scholars insist on the kinship ties or commu-
nity links between the supposed ‘foreign’ fighters and the groups they join. This accounts
for their newly gained ‘foreignness’. For most, the only solution is to refer to the differ-
ence in nationality or citizenship between the ‘foreign’ and ‘local’ fighters (Hegghammer,
2010: 57–58; Malet, 2013: 9; Moore, 2015: 396), and to take these elements as stable or
undisputable. At times, the qualifying ‘foreign’ refers to ‘non-indigenous’ (Moore and
Tumelty, 2008: 412) or to those who have left their ‘country of origin’ or ‘home country’
(Bakke, 2014: 150; Bílková, 2018: 5; Byman, 2019: 7; Kraehenmann, 2010), which in
turn creates new issues around the definition of these terms (‘indigenous’, ‘origin’ and
‘home’). Overall, this confusion points to the need to explore how multiplicity functions
in situations where the us-them distinction is particularly unstable.
This is all the more important insofar as the bulk of the academic research on ‘foreign
fighters’ has only considered the questions of identity and difference indirectly. For Moore
(2015: 396), ‘The overwhelming body of work on foreign fighters and contemporary activ-
ist movements has focused on recruitment or mobilisation and occasionally the converse,
disengagement from militant movements more generally’.3 As such, the existing research
concentrates on the reasons why ‘foreign fighters’ join insurgencies and terrorist organisa-
tions, focusing on the lives and experiences of the ‘foreign fighters’ themselves (Lindemann,
2018; Rostami et al., 2020; Verwimp, 2016), on the way they are recruited and mobilised
(Holman, 2016a; Malet, 2013; Orozobekova, 2016; Wignell et al., 2017), on the origins of
the phenomenon of the ‘Muslim foreign fighters’ (Hegghammer, 2010), and the impact of
‘foreign fighters’ on the conflicts in which they are involved (Bakke, 2014). Alternatively,
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