Imag(in)ing the severed head: ISIS beheadings and the absent spectacle

• Published in: Critical studies on security 2018-04, Vol.6 (1), p.66-84
• Main Author: Auchter, Jessica
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Fear & phobias; International relations; Military personnel; Soldiers; Victims
• ISSN: 2162-4887; 2162-4909
• DOI: 10.1080/21624887.2017.1366801

This paper examines how fear of ISIS beheadings comes to be taken for granted. It uses the framing of the Bilderverbot, the secularised image ban of biblical origin, to examine how beheadings are represented as unrepresentable, and how this paradox enters into normalcy. It demonstrates the relation between the image ban and the naturalisation of fear by telling the story of two beheadings: one of an Iraqi head and one of a Western one. The first is shown but not seen, and the latter is seen but not shown. The first account, concerning the severed head of an Iraqi man working as an informant for American soldiers, allows for an examination of how beheadings are often depicted in the language of horror, or as an example of ‘body horror’. In this story, the audience never learns the name of the man who was beheaded, and whose severed head is rendered background to a story of the excesses of war. The second story, the story of ISIS beheadings of Western victims, is a different story: one in which the severed head has become a fact of international politics, something doxic in which fear of ISIS beheadings is taken for granted.