Professor Michele Grossman

The trope of ‘human terrain systems’ (HTS) began its short lifespan in 2007 as a USA Army program that employed social scientists from various disciplines to help military commanders and trainers understand more about the cultural, social and linguistic characteristics of foreign regions where the military was deployed, often with little to no prior grasp of local cultural and social conditions and dispositions. The primary goal of ‘human terrain systems’ was to develop techniques for the rapid mapping and apprehension of unfamiliar cultural and social characteristics (as already occurred in mapping the geographical terrain) that would help maximise mission success and reduce risks to both Army personnel and the military interventions they were responsible for staging.

A mounting barrage of criticism and concerns accompanied the funding and implementation of HTS, a steady roll-call of social scientists and scholarly bodies withdrew from participation, and the program finally ceased operation in 2014. However, its legacy arguably lingers, in both fleeting and ephemeral forms, in some contemporary policy and thinking on domestic efforts to prevent and counter violent extremism.

I would like to suggest some benefits for reclaiming the trope of ‘human terrain’ from its damaged history as a failed military program, and reconsider what the ‘human terrain’ of both understanding and preventing violent extremism might look like as a prosocial project: one that recognises, respects and harnesses the capacity of ‘everyday experts’ in our own communities to help us understand the who and the why of pathways both into and out of terrorist ideologies and actions; the human vulnerabilities and human capital inherent in intelligence-gathering and decision-making, and the convergence of human and systems-based knowledge in identifying and protecting against security risks. In an age in which algorithms now vie with alphabets, and in which ‘artificial’ or ‘machine’ intelligence is compelling reassessments of ‘authentic’ or ‘human’ intelligence, is timely to ask whether altered concepts of what constitutes ‘human’ (or indeed post-human) terrain can help us navigate the current crossroads at which understanding and preventing violent extremisms now sit.

Bio

Professor Michele Grossman, PhD, is Research Chair in Diversity and Community Resilience at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University, where she leads the AVERT (Addressing Violent Extremism and Radicalisation to Terrorism) Research Network. Michele’s research on countering violent extremism is internationally recognised for its advancement of knowledge and distinctive policy impacts, and she has been an invited keynote speaker at a wide range of national and international forums and conferences on terrorism and violent extremism. She is currently a chief investigator on research grants funded by CVESC (Australia), National Institute of Justice (USA) and Horizon 2020 (European Commission), amongst others. Michele holds a Robert Schuman Fellowship (2019-2021) at the European University Institute in Florence, and a Visiting Professorship (2018-2022) at the UK’s University of Huddersfield. In 2019 she became Director of the new Collaborative Centre of Excellence for Resilient Communities and Inclusive Societies (CERCIS), an international consortium of research, industry and community partners supported by the Victorian Government that focuses on strengthening community resilience and reducing social harms such as violent extremism, social polarisation and hate-based speech and behaviours.