Research output
Complete citation
Poljarević, Emin. “Les Salafistes and a French Reproduction of Certainties in a World of Uncertainties.” American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 33, no. 2 (2016): 145–155. https://doi.org/10.12816/0037450.
Status
Published (2016)
Publication type
Critical review essay
Overview
This review essay critically examines the French documentary Les Salafistes and its representation of Salafi and jihadist actors. The film presents striking images and interviews from conflict settings, but its framing risks turning selected voices into an apparently self-explanatory portrait of Salafism as a whole. The essay asks how cinematic selection, juxtaposition, and political context shape what viewers are invited to regard as religious certainty and violence. It argues that the documentary’s claim to expose an uncompromising worldview may reproduce a different certainty: a French public narrative in which complex religious and political formations become legible primarily through extremism. The contribution is a critical analysis of representation that distinguishes the empirical subjects shown on screen from the broader interpretive claims produced by the film.
Research question or central concern
How does Les Salafistes construct knowledge about Salafism, and what political or epistemic certainties does its documentary framing reproduce?
Main argument, approach, and contribution
The essay uses close critical reading of the documentary’s images, interviews, and framing choices. It argues that the film’s presentation of militant certainty can generate an equally reductive certainty among viewers by collapsing diverse Salafi currents into a single violent image. Its contribution lies in showing how representation participates in the production of public knowledge about Islam.
Keywords
Salafism; France; documentary film; representation; jihadism; Islamophobia; public knowledge
Emin Poljarević 