Communicating Islamic Fundamentalism as Global Citizenship

This article discusses Islamic fundamentalism as forming an imagined community functioning within and beyond the nation, and therefore communicating a local/global identity. Through the use of textual and network analysis, the article focuses on the Internet and its uses by various Islamic fundamentalist groups across the globe. The article argues that the Internet is used by the groups as a “portable homeland” that allows them to strengthen their global ties and communicate with one another, and also to communicate with the connected world at large. The article thus looks at cyberspace as another venue for the carrying out of political conflicts. The author argues that cyberspace has become an enabling tool through which Islamic fundamentalist groups protect, strengthen, and communicate their multiple identities. In this way, Islamic fundamentalism is analyzed not as an inward-looking resistant force that opposes globalization but as a glocal force in itself.