This presentation aims to: i. highlight the importance of thinking about the function and effects of images and collective and social imaginaries in policy, governance and collective life; ii. unpack the constitutive effects of some of the images associated with key concepts and ideas in both Prevent and Channel, the British government’s strategies to prevent terrorism; iii. and, finally, appraise the risk of epistemic injustice, in particular testimonial injustice, in implementing these policies and consolidating these imaginaries. It argues that therapeutic/epidemiological images are currently privileged in documentation associated with preventative counter-terrorism approaches in the UK, and that given the scope of indicators outlined in the vulnerability assessment framework used by Channel, an image of children and student subjectivity is being constructed that risks proliferating false positives by identifying students, in particular Muslim students, as potentially vulnerable and ‘at risk’ (of radicalisation). A number of authors have already argued that the Muslim community is being constituted as a ‘suspect community’ (Spalek 2011; Pantazis and Pemberton, 2009, 2011; Kundnani, 2009, 2015; Githen-Mazer, 2009; Hickman, M. et al, 2011; Bonino, 2013; Mythen et al, 2009; Jackson, 2008) and that this is serving to silence people, denying them agency, voice and the opportunity to discuss complex and difficult political and social ideas. Although some philosophers view images as merely an embellishment to concepts rather than inherently significant, others like Gatens and Lloyd (1999), Code (2006) and Fricker (2007) argue that collective and social imaginaries orient our political, social and affective lives, and shape our concepts. Understanding collective imaginaries means thinking about images as constitutive, generative, and productive rather than as descriptive. The reading of Spinoza offered by Gatens and Lloyd (1999) in their book Collective Imaginings is particularly instructive in this regard. The strategies of Prevent and Channel (DCSF, 2008; HM Government 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015) involve, I argue, the expansion of a therapeutic/epidemiological imaginary that pathologises certain subjectivities and focuses on potential future risks rather than real problems, privileging ‘expert’ psychological discourses, whilst conflating extremist and radical ideas with violent methods.

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