Anthropologist Seeks the Roots of Terrorism

[L. Coyote]

Anthropologist Seeks the Roots of Terrorism
In spite of massive challenges, Scott Atran has managed to conduct extensive field interviews with would-be and convicted terrorists
January 20, 2015 | Véalo en español

Editor's note (11/16/15): Following the terrorist attacks in Paris on November 13, Scientific American is republishing the following article, which originally ran after the attack on Charlie Hebdo, a Parisian newspaper, in January 2015.

In the wake of terrorist attacks last week on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Paris supermarket, the world has struggled to understand the combination of religion, European culture and influence from terrorist organizations that drove the gunmen. Scott Atran, an anthropologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris, studies such questions by interviewing would-be and convicted terrorists about their extreme commitment to their organizations and ideals. Atran recently returned from Paris, where he talked with members of the shooters’ communities. He spoke with Nature about what he discovered.

What sociological and cultural factors are behind the Paris attacks?
Unlike the United States, where immigrants achieve average socioeconomic status and education within a generation, in Europe even after three generations, depending on the country, they’re 5–19 times more likely to be poor or less educated. France has about 7.5% Muslims and [they make] up to 60–75% of the prison population. It’s a very similar situation to black youth in the United States.

.......