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Speaker: Nayanika Mookherjee
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Discussants: Erica Hall, Kolbassia Haoussou, Naila Kabeer, Denisa Kostovicova
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Chair: Marsha Henry
In Spectral Wound, Nayanika Mookherjee counters the assumption of silence relating to wartime rape and maps out the circulation of public memories related to the sexual violence of the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 (Muktijuddho). This public memory manifests in the internationally unprecedented state designation of the raped women as birangonas ('brave women') in 1971; an extensive 45 year old archive of visual and literary representations of the raped woman dating back to 1971; and human rights testimonies of poor and middle class birangonas since the 1990s.
The book demonstrates that while this celebration of birangonas as heroes keeps them in the public memories, they exist in the public consciousness as what Mookherjee calls a 'spectral wound'. Dominant representations of birangonas as dehumanized victims with disheveled hair, and rejected by their communities create this wound, the effects of which flatten the diversity of their experiences through which birangonas have lived with this violence of wartime rape.
The book examines the circulation of images, press and literary representations, testimonies of rape among survivors of sexual violence and their families, the left-liberal civil society and state actors. It focuses not only on the experiences of women but also of that of men; examines public memory and public secrecy of wartime rape in a post-conflict context rather than seeking to highlight silent narratives; and finally locates the narratives within wider political, literary and visual contexts.
In critically examining the pervasiveness of the birangona construction, the book decentres the prevalent understandings of stigma, silence, honour, shame and reparations relating to wartime rape and opens the possibility for a more politico-economic and ethical inquiry into the sexuality of war.
Speakers
Nayanika Mookherjee is the Research Director and Reader in the Anthropology department in Durham University. She has published extensively on anthropology of violence, ethics and aesthetics.
In 2014 she was awarded the Mahatma Gandhi Pravasi Samman (for overseas Indians) award at the House of Lords for her social anthropological work on gendered violence during wars. The Spectral Wound: Sexual Violence, Public Memories and the Bangladesh War (2015, Duke University Press, Foreword by Prof. Veena Das) was shortlisted for the British Sociological Association / BBC Thinking Allowed Ethnography Award.
Erica Hall joined World Vision UK in 2011 as a Senior Policy Adviser. She is a lawyer with extensive policy experience on issues related to armed conflict, gender and child protection. Her previous experience includes working for both NGOs and the UN. She has worked and conducted research on gender and child protection issues in a wide range of conflict-affected countries. She is the co-author of World Vision's report No Shame in Justice: Addressing stigma against survivors to end sexual violence in conflict zones, which was launched at the Centre for Women, Peace and Security in December 2015.
Kolbassia Haoussou has worked at Freedom from Torture since 2009. In 2006 he co-founded the Survivors Speak OUT network, a national network of torture survivors and former clients of Freedom from Torture who draw on their lived experience of torture and seeking protection through asylum, to influence decision-makers and raise public awareness of the challenges facing survivors trying to rebuild their lives in the UK. Members of the network addressed the UN General Assembly in New York in 2013. Kolbassia is an accomplished speaker and in 2014 delivered a keynote speech alongside William Hague and Angelina Jolie Pitt at the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict.
Naila Kabeer is Professor of Gender and Development at the Gender Institute and at the Department of International Development at LSE. Her research interests include gender, poverty, social exclusion, labour markets and livelihoods, social protection and citizenship and much of her research is focused on South and South East Asia.
Denisa Kostovicova is Associate Professor in Global Politics at the Government Department and a Research Fellow at the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit at the Department of International Development at LSE. Her research interests include post-conflict reconstruction and security, civil society and human security, war crimes and transitional justice.
Marsha Henry (chair) is Deputy Director of the Centre for Women, Peace and Security and Associate Professor in the Gender Institute at LSE. Her research interests focus on three main research areas: gender and development; gender, security and militarisation; and qualitative methodologies.