Afghanistan

Citation:

Allison, Katherine. 2013. “American Occidentalism and the Agential Muslim Woman.” Review of International Studies 39 (3): 665–84.

Author: Katherine Allison

Abstract:

Through the War on Terror the United States developed a seemingly enlightened understanding of Muslim women. In contrast to Orientalised representations of Muslim women's passivity and victimisation within brutal Islamic cultures these emerging representations posit Muslim women in terms of their modernity and liberation. The emergence of this new Muslim woman illuminates an attempt to secure an Occidental self through the negotiation of conflicting impulses towards Islam. Islam is recognised as the repository from which the US enemy other emerges yet the WoT also reflects a particular desire for a cosmopolitan inclusivity. The presence of the Muslim woman acts to assuage these tensions. Her oppression confirms the barbarity of the enemy yet the combination of her intrinsic agency and religiosity posits her as an acceptable Islamic other whose presence confirms the pluralistic tolerance of the US and the universal validity of its project.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Femininity/ies Regions: Asia, Middle East, South Asia Countries: Afghanistan

Year: 2012

Citation:

Author: Julia Welland

Abstract:

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Violence Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East, South Asia Countries: Afghanistan, Iraq

Year: 2013

Citation:

Welland, Julia. 2015. “Liberal Warriors and the Violent Colonial Logics of ‘Partnering and Advising.’” International Feminist Journal of Politics 17 (2): 289–307. doi:10.1080/14616742.2014.890775.

Author: Julia Welland

Abstract:

Building on the feminist literature that traces the (re)production of militarized masculinities in and through military interventions, this article details some of the ways British soldiering subjects are being shaped in today's counterinsurgency context. Required now to be both nation builders and war fighters, contemporary soldiers are a “softer,” less masculinized subjectivity, and what Alison Howell has termed “liberal warriors.” British troops with their long history of colonialism and frequent overseas military campaigns are understood to be particularly suited to this role. Taking the British military's involvement in the “partnering and advising” of the Afghan National Army (ANA), this article pays attention to the interlocking gendered, raced, and sexualized discourses through which the British/Afghan encounter is experienced. Exploring first British troops' preoccupation with the perceived femininity and homosexuality of their Afghan counterparts, and second, Afghan hypermasculinity as demonstrated by the characterizations of their violent and chaotic fighting tactics, colonial logics are revealed. While British liberal warriors come to know “who they are” through these logics, (mis)represented Afghan soldiers are rendered increasingly vulnerable to the very “real,” very material violences of war.

Keywords: militarized masculinities, counterinsurgency, Afghanistan, ANA, colonial logics

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Male Combatants, Gender, Men, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Livelihoods, Militarized Livelihoods, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Afghanistan

Year: 2015

Citation:

Schultz, C. M. 1994. "Promoting Economic Self-Reliance: A Case Study of Afghan Refugee Women in Pakistan." Journal of International Affairs 47 (2): 557.

Author: C. M. Schultz

Abstract:

"Presents a case study of Afghan refugee women in Pakistan. Approximates number of refugees in the world and percentage of whom are women and children; discusses how the majority of refugee women are the heads of their households, responsible for providing basic needs for their families while in exile and seeking durable solutions, despite facing many problems with limited options; Evaluation of the progress made in promoting economic self-sufficiency for refugee women." -Ebscohost

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Refugees, Gender, Women Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan

Year: 1994

Citation:

St. Germain, Tonia, and Susan Dewey, eds. 2012. Conflict-Related Sexual Violence: International Law, Local Responses. Sterling, Va: Kumarian Press.

Authors: Tonia St. Germain, Susan Dewey

Abstract:

The result of a collaboration between a feminist legal scholar and an anthropologist, Conflict-Related Sexual Violence presents completely original work by anthropologists, international human rights lawyers, legal theorists, political scientists, mental health professionals, and activists who report upon their respective research regarding responses to conflict-related sexual violence in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia, Haiti, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and South Africa. Much more than a series of case studies, though, the bulk of the book addresses the implications of international responses to conflict-related sexual violence through analyses of the gaps between policy and practice with respect to efforts made by international organizations, criminal courts and tribunals to reduce or respond to conflict-related sexual violence. Scholarly, reflective, provocative yet practical and action-oriented, this book exemplifies a visionary blending of analysis, evidence, concepts and programs for ameliorating the lot of those whose lives are framed by war and conflict and the striving to find healing and justice.

(Kumarian Press)

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Women, International Law, Justice, NGOs, Sexual Violence, SV against Women Regions: Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, West Africa, Americas, Caribbean countries, South America, Asia, South Asia, Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Afghanistan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Colombia, Haiti, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa

Year: 2012

Citation:

Dyvik, Synne Laastad. 2014. “Women as ‘Practitioners’ and ‘Targets.’” International Feminist Journal of Politics 16 (3): 410–29. doi:10.1080/14616742.2013.779139.

Author: Synne Laastad Dyvik

Abstract:

Feminist scholarship has shown how gender is integral to understanding war, and that the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was partly legitimated through a reference to Afghan women's ‘liberation’. Recognizing this, the article analyses how gender is crucial also to understanding the practice of ‘population-centric’ counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. Because this type of warfare aims at ‘winning hearts and minds’, it is in engaging the population that a notable gendered addition to the US military strategy surfaces, Female Engagement Teams (FETs). Citing ‘cultural sensitivity’ as a key justification, the US deploys all-female teams to engage with and access a previously untapped source of intelligence and information, namely Afghan women. Beyond this being seen as necessary to complete the task of population-centric counterinsurgency, it is also hailed as a progressive step that contributes to Afghan women's broader empowerment. Subjecting population-centric counterinsurgency to feminist analysis, this article finds that in constructing women both as ‘practitioners’ and ‘targets’, this type of warfare constitutes another chapter in the various ways that their bodies have been relied upon for its ‘success’.

Keywords: Afghanistan, counterinsurgency, cultural turn, empowerment, female engagement teams, feminism, military masculinities

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Female Combatants, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Masculinity/ies, Livelihoods, Militarized Livelihoods, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Terrorism Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East Countries: Afghanistan

Year: 2014

Citation:

Chisholm, Amanda. 2014. “The Silenced and Indispensible.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 16 (1): 26–47. 

Author: Amanda Chisholm

Abstract:

Using postcolonial analysis coupled with fieldwork in both Afghanistan and Nepal, I argue that contemporary colonial relations within private security make possible a gender and racial hierarchy of security contractors. This hierarchy of contractors results in vastly different conditions of possibilities depending on the contractors' histories and nationalities. Empirically documenting perspectives from Gurkhas, constituted as third country national (TCNs) security contractors, this article contributes to the existing critical theory and gender in both private military security company literature and postcolonial studies by (1) providing a needed racial and gendered analysis from the position of the racialized security contractors and (2) empirically documenting a growing subaltern group of men participating as security contractors.

Keywords: private security, private military security companies, third country nationals, Gurkhas, Afghanistan, martial race, postcolonial, masculinities, Gender

Topics: Combatants, Male Combatants, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Livelihoods, Militarized Livelihoods, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Private Military & Security, Privatization Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Afghanistan, Nepal

Year: 2014

Citation:

Hyde, Alexandra. 2016. “The Present Tense of Afghanistan: Accounting for Space, Time and Gender in Processes of Militarisation.” Gender, Place & Culture 23 (6): 857–68. doi:10.1080/0966369X.2015.1058759.

Author: Alexandra Hyde

Abstract:

Based on ethnographic research among women married to servicemen, this article explores the diffusion of militarisation across time as well as social space. The study setting is a garrison town in Germany during the deployment of women's husbands to Afghanistan. Rather than prioritising the grand narratives of linear time prevalent in IR and military history, however, this article takes into account cyclical and everyday modes of temporality that have traditionally been associated (and undervalued) as feminised ‘zones’, including reproduction, the domestic sphere and local social space. The article explores the temporal register of an operational tour and demonstrates the material, discursive and emotional labour undertaken by military wives in smoothing and converting this rupture into stability through everyday practices. Accounting for the diffusion of militarisation over time as well as space in this way provides further evidence that its causes and effects are intricately gendered.

Keywords: militarisation, temporality, contingency, war, home

Topics: Gender, Women, Femininity/ies, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Militarization Regions: Asia, South Asia, Europe, Central Europe Countries: Afghanistan, Germany

Year: 2016

Citation:

Wright, Rebecca. 2010. Afghanistan’s Female Home-Based Workers: Isolated and Undervalued.  Kabul: SABOOR Printing Press.

Author: Rebecca Wright

Topics: Gender, Women Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Afghanistan

Year: 2010

Citation:

Riphenburg, Carol J. 2003. “Gender Relations and Development in a Weak State: The Rebuilding of Afghanistan.” Central Asian Survey 22 (2-3): 187–207. doi:10.1080/0263493032000157726.

Author: Carol J. Riphenburg

Topics: Democracy / Democratization, Development, Gender, Women, Governance, Post-Conflict Governance, Nationalism, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Religion, Terrorism, Tribe Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Afghanistan

Year: 2003