The Sexual Politics of War: Reading the Kurdish Conflict Through Images of Women

The Sexual Politics of War: Reading the Kurdish Conflict Through Images of Women

This article aims to dissect different representations of Kurdish women in order to illustrate how these representations correspond to different technologies of power. These three images are the joyful freedom fighter, the woman to be saved and the dishonourable terrorist. These three images, employ...

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Veröffentlicht in:URI:https://journals.openedition.org/cedref,
1. Verfasser: Alkan, Hilal
Format: Article ou chapitre numérique
Sprache:Anglais
Veröffentlicht: Les cahiers du CEDREF 2018
Online Zugang:Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
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spelling openedition-oai:revues.org:cedref_1111 https://doi.org/10.4000/cedref.1111 urn:doi:10.4000/cedref.1111 en https://journals.openedition.org/cedref/1111 2018-11-06T01:00:00Z info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess article info:eu-repo/semantics/article urn:handle:20.500.13089/doci https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/ The Sexual Politics of War: Reading the Kurdish Conflict Through Images of Women Les cahiers du CEDREF ADREF info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/2107-0733 info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/1146-6472 URI:https://journals.openedition.org/cedref Alkan, Hilal This article aims to dissect different representations of Kurdish women in order to illustrate how these representations correspond to different technologies of power. These three images are the joyful freedom fighter, the woman to be saved and the dishonourable terrorist. These three images, employed in contrast to each other differentially by different publics, however, have one thing in common: They are highly sexualised. Thus, the technologies they refer to and evoke address Kurdish women in their sexuality.While the image of the freedom fighter is much beloved by Western audiences, the historical conditions that have made it possible—the Kurdish women’s movement as well as the history of armed struggle—is largely overlooked. This image also brushes over the significance of the question of sexuality in the Kurdish political movement itself. The images of the woman to be saved and the dishonourable terrorist are in wide public circulation in Turkey. They build upon a technology of differentiation, which tries to single out politicised Kurdish women, and especially those who take part in armed struggle, as disgraced; therefore legitimizing sexual violence against them. The image of the woman to be saved is however equally sexualised, as it addresses Kurdish women in their reproductive capacities, which are to be controlled via various governmental technologies. The final argument of the article is that, when there is a state of exception in the Agambenian sense, this differentiation is held up and these two images start to overlap. This means a suspension of juridical order, ethical codes and everyday moral conduct, and use of technologies that address Kurdish women as a whole as dishonourable terrorists, upon whom sexual violence can be legitimately inflicted.
collection OpenEdition Journal
language Anglais
format Article ou chapitre numérique
building 0/Bibliothèque numérique/
1/Bibliothèque numérique/OpenEdition Journals/
description This article aims to dissect different representations of Kurdish women in order to illustrate how these representations correspond to different technologies of power. These three images are the joyful freedom fighter, the woman to be saved and the dishonourable terrorist. These three images, employed in contrast to each other differentially by different publics, however, have one thing in common: They are highly sexualised. Thus, the technologies they refer to and evoke address Kurdish women in their sexuality.While the image of the freedom fighter is much beloved by Western audiences, the historical conditions that have made it possible—the Kurdish women’s movement as well as the history of armed struggle—is largely overlooked. This image also brushes over the significance of the question of sexuality in the Kurdish political movement itself. The images of the woman to be saved and the dishonourable terrorist are in wide public circulation in Turkey. They build upon a technology of differentiation, which tries to single out politicised Kurdish women, and especially those who take part in armed struggle, as disgraced; therefore legitimizing sexual violence against them. The image of the woman to be saved is however equally sexualised, as it addresses Kurdish women in their reproductive capacities, which are to be controlled via various governmental technologies. The final argument of the article is that, when there is a state of exception in the Agambenian sense, this differentiation is held up and these two images start to overlap. This means a suspension of juridical order, ethical codes and everyday moral conduct, and use of technologies that address Kurdish women as a whole as dishonourable terrorists, upon whom sexual violence can be legitimately inflicted.
author Alkan, Hilal
spellingShingle Alkan, Hilal
The Sexual Politics of War: Reading the Kurdish Conflict Through Images of Women
author_facet Alkan, Hilal
author_sort Alkan, Hilal
title The Sexual Politics of War: Reading the Kurdish Conflict Through Images of Women
title_short The Sexual Politics of War: Reading the Kurdish Conflict Through Images of Women
title_full The Sexual Politics of War: Reading the Kurdish Conflict Through Images of Women
title_fullStr The Sexual Politics of War: Reading the Kurdish Conflict Through Images of Women
title_full_unstemmed The Sexual Politics of War: Reading the Kurdish Conflict Through Images of Women
title_sort sexual politics of war: reading the kurdish conflict through images of women
publisher Les cahiers du CEDREF
publishDate 2018
container_title URI:https://journals.openedition.org/cedref
url https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://doi.org/10.4000/cedref.1111
https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://journals.openedition.org/cedref/1111
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