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Abstract
This article explores the closely knit yet complex link between proscription and temporality through the examination of terrorism trials in Nigeria. Through the notion of proscribing time, this article demonstrates the ways in which proscription is enacted, imagined, and contested in light of important temporal effects. With a few exceptions, recent debates around proscription remain almost overwhelmingly focused on the banning of particular groups linked to terrorism, and on proscription power and its wider political and ethical ramifications. This "actor-oriented" focus (proscribed/proscriber), I argue, reinforces certain theoretical and ontological claims recognizable in the dominant analysis of terrorism. Moreover, such a perspective is predominantly organized around a forward-oriented logic of security preemption, which does not fully reveal the complexity and broader consequences of proscription. Thus, drawing upon relevant insights about temporality, especially as discussed in critical security studies, critical legal studies, and beyond, this article demonstrates how time is proscribed (rather than terrorist groups) to render visible the complexity and ramifications of proscription. The article, as such, contributes theoretically to ongoing debates about proscription and temporality in critical security studies more broadly. It also, empirically, makes a worthwhile contribution to a relatively small, though important, scholarship on terrorism trials in Nigeria.

This article explores the importance of embodiment in (research on) archival practices on state counter-terrorism policy in Nigeria. In doing so, the article seeks to contribute to the ongoing discussion around methodology and methods in critical security studies and other related fields in international relations by focusing on (researchers') bodies as sites of knowledge production and intervention. Building on three empirical themes of fragmentation, labelling and gatekeeping that emerged from fieldwork in Abuja, Nigeria, I demonstrate how embodiment operates in active research contexts in the production – and problematization – of in/security. To do this, I draw inspiration from ideas around state archival practice; embodiment in critical security studies, especially as discussed in feminist and postcolonial work; and in/security theory to scaffold my broader methodological approach. A focus on embodiment, the article argues, marks the researcher's body – and research – as integral to the development of theories and findings about security. At the same time, exploring the ways in which the (researcher's) body is (re)produced in relation to identity and subjectivity encourages greater reflexivity in our research practice and fieldwork, as we are continually reminded that our work and our words are grounded in the standpoints that we occupy. The article concludes by identifying some useful strategies from my fieldwork for grappling with the challenges and tensions that emerge from bodily encounters in (security) research process.

This article explores a neglected question in ongoing debates about counter-terrorism efforts in Nigeria: How is Nigeria's counter-terrorism strategy discursively framed? The article argues, in part, that Nigeria's counter-terrorism strategy is essentially a political activity which contributes to the production of a specific Nigerian identity by designating north-eastern Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin as "ungoverned" spaces. This construction of identity through geography, though, has important implications for policy, identity and security in Nigeria, and beyond. This study of Nigeria, I also argue, presents an opportunity for a much-needed conversation between CTS and postcolonialism for broadening knowledge on discourses around (counter-)terrorism. Drawing upon the concept of space in postcolonial scholarship, this article demonstrates how the relationship between geography, identity and subjectivity offers a broader framework for articulating continuing, and recent, discourses of counter-terrorism. It demonstrates how Nigerian counter-terrorism discourse reproduces, and transforms, well-known Euro-centric and state-centred discourses which intersect with colonial and imperialistic ideas (and practices). In doing so, the article makes two notable contributions: first, it provides a sustained focus on official articulations of counter-terrorism in Nigeria by examining important primary data. Second, in mobilizing the concept of space in postcolonialism, it facilitates crucial theoretical reflections within (critical) terrorism studies.