In her recent article, White Terrorism on Trial: Anti-Muslim Violence, Canadian Counter-terrorism, and the Legal Boundaries of White Nationalism published in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Sophie Marois explores how Canadian courts adjudicate acts of racist violence and how they decide what counts as “terrorism.” The article centres on the trial following the June 6, 2021, vehicle‑ramming attack in London, Ontario, which killed three generations of a Muslim Canadian family while they were taking an evening walk in their neighbourhood. This anti-Muslim attack in a mid-size Canadian city is part of what scholars and activists have denounced as a cascading pattern of violence inspired by reactionary politics, such as so-called “great replacement” theories.
For the first time under Canadian law, the murders were legally recognized as white nationalist terrorism. Drawing on detailed courtroom observations conducted throughout the 2023–2024 proceedings, Sophie’s article examines how judicial processes shape how and what we know about white nationalist and anti-Muslim violence in Canada.
By taking an empirical approach attentive to the affective and political dimensions of courtroom proceedings, [this work] contributes to growing scholarship on whiteness, racial violence, and the contested boundaries of ‘terrorism’ in liberal settler states.
The research for this article was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, and the Connaught PhDs for Public Impact Fellowship at the University of Toronto.
Sophie Marois is a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of Toronto. Her dissertation research focuses on public responses to anti-Muslim violence in Canada, with particular attention to commemorative practices, legal proceedings, and solidarity networks. She also contributes to collaborative projects on critical terrorism studies, creative research methods, memory studies, and the sociology of emotions.