Kabul Carnival : Gender Politics in Postwar Afghanistan / Julie Billaud.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Billaud, Julie, Author.

Series:

Ethnography of political violence.

The Ethnography of Political Violence

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women--Violence against--Afghanistan--History--21st century.

Women.

Public spaces--Afghanistan--History--21st century.

Public spaces.

Postwar reconstruction--Afghanistan.

Postwar reconstruction.

Nationalism and feminism--Religious aspects--Islam--History--21st century.

Nationalism and feminism.

Women--Afghanistan--Social conditions--History--21st century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (257 p.) : illustrations, photographs

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2015]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the plight of Afghan women under Taliban rule was widely publicized in the United States as one of the humanitarian issues justifying intervention. Kabul Carnival explores the contradictions, ambiguities, and unintended effects of the emancipatory projects for Afghan women designed and imposed by external organizations. Building on embodiment and performance theory, this evocative ethnography describes Afghan women's responses to social anxieties about identity that have emerged as a result of the military occupation.Offering one of the first long-term on-the-ground studies since the arrival of allied forces in 2001, Julie Billaud introduces readers to daily life in Afghanistan through portraits of women targeted by international aid policies. Examining encounters between international experts in gender and transitional justice, Afghan civil servants and NGO staff, and women unaffiliated with these organizations, Billaud unpacks some of the paradoxes that arise from competing understandings of democracy and rights practices. Kabul Carnival reveals the ways in which the international community's concern with the visibility of women in public has ultimately created tensions and constrained women's capacity to find a culturally legitimate voice.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Prologue: “If Only You Were Born a Boy”

Introduction: Carnival of (Post)War

Chapter 1. Queen Soraya’s Portrait

Chapter 2. National Women’s Machinery: Coaching Lives in the Ministry of Women’s Aff airs

Chapter 3. Public and Private Faces of Gender (In)Justice

Chapter 4. Moral Panics, Indian Soaps, and Cosmetics: Writing the Nation on Women’s Bodies

Chapter 5. Strategic Decoration: Dissimulation, Performance, and Agency in an Islamic Public Space

Chapter 6. Poetic Jihad: Narratives of Martyrdom, Suicide, and Suffering Among Afghan Women

Conclusion: The Carnival Continues

Chronology

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Jun 2020)

ISBN:

9780812291148

081229114X

OCLC:

904741238