Suchergebnisse

El artículo recorre mis trayectorias como activista/académica feminista que busca investigar, escribir y hablar sobre violencia de género en Medio Oriente. Más específicamente, me baso en mi investigación y activismo en Iraq, Turquía y Líbano para mapear las complejidades y desafíos discursivos, políticos y empíricos ligados a la investigación académica y al activismo, tanto en las políticas feministas como las anti-racistas/anti-islamófobas. Partiendo de una reflexión sobre mi posicionalidad, intento desafiar el binarismo entre el activismo y la academia, así como el de los contextos occidental y de Medio Oriente en términos de producción de conocimiento.

The article charts my trajectories as a feminist activist/academic seeking to research, write and talk about gender-based violence in relation to the Middle East. More specifically, I am drawing on research and activism in relation to Iraq, Turkey and Lebanon to map the discursive, political and empirical challenges and complexities linked to scholarship and activism that is grounded in both feminist and anti-racist/anti-Islamophobic politics. While reflecting on my positionality, the article aims to challenge the binary of activism and academia as well as Western and Middle Eastern contexts in terms of knowledge production.

The article discusses sexual violence by ISIS against women in Iraq, particularly Yezidi women, against the historical background of broader sexual and gender-based violence. It intervenes in feminist debates about how to approach and analyse sexual and wider gender-based violence in Iraq specifically and the Middle East more generally. Recognizing the significance of positionality, the article argues against dichotomous positions and for the need to look at both macrostructural configurations of power pertaining to imperialism, neoliberalism and globalization on the one hand, and localized expressions of patriarchy, religious interpretations and practices and cultural norms on the other hand. Finally, the article reflects on the question of what a transnational feminist solidarity might look like in relation to sexual violence by ISIS.

"The article explores the changing role of women and gender in Iraq throughout 35 years of Ba'th regime to the current post-invasion period. Against the historic background of both state repression and state feminism, women's position and gender relations changed rapidly. But it is in the current context of occupation and the rising influence of Islamist political parties and militias that gender ideologies and relations are at the centre of political contestations, increasing violence and the instrumentalization of human rights issues." (author's abstract)

For years the lives of Iraqi women have been framed by state oppression, economic sanctions & three wars. US-led calls for liberation may in the long term serve to further oppress them. Adapted from the source document.