El poder de la escritura en contextos de genocidio y femicidio

This paper turns to the modern or colonial state’s writings, that is, constitution, laws, decrees, communiqués, bureaucratized violence –that at the same instant makes it genocidal/femicidal. The writings of the state are both historical and contemporary, traveling across time and space, shaping and making political programs, policies and the technologies of genocide/femicide irreducible to anthropocentric calculations. As a cross-disciplinary study, this paper details how political writings are as much fundamental to the state’s ceaseless quest for domination and destruction of ecological conditions of existence and life forms, as they are necessary to translate, to prove modern political violence. It shows how sexual violence, rape and abduction or trade in women become the writings of the modern state and how political violence continues in Iraq.En este artículo se analiza cómo el Estado moderno y colonial se conforma a través de formas específicas de escritura (la Constitución, las leyes, los decretos, los comunicados, la violencia burocratizada) las cuales, instantáneamente, convierten al Estado en genocida y femicida. Los escritos políticos son tanto históricos como contemporáneos ya que, al desplazarse a través del tiempo y del espacio, cruzan fronteras, forjan programas y políticas de Estado que hacen del genocidio y del femicidio algo irreductible a consideraciones antropocéntricas. En este sentido, el artículo sostiene que los escritos políticos transforman los contextos que describen. Dichos escritos son inherentes al Estado nación y a su insaciable propósito de dominación y destrucción sistemática de las condiciones ecológicas y formas de vida, así como necesarios para traducir y probar la violencia política y estatal moderna. Con un enfoque interdisciplinar, el artículo demuestra cómo la violencia de género (violencia sexual), el secuestro y la trata de mujeres se convirtieron en los temas de escritura del Estado iraquí. Al final, se plantea una discusión sobre el silenciamiento infinito de la violencia genocida en Irak, caracterizada por tres décadas de impunidad ante la violencia sexual y los secuestros de mujeres durante la Operación al-Anfal, de los recientes genocidios y femicidios y de cómo después de tres décadas de violencia sexual ejercida en al-Anfal, de violaciones y de secuestros de mujeres, junto con el genocidio y el femicidio del Estado Islámico contra los yazidíes, todo acto genocida continúa infinitamente silenciado en Irak

Gendered lived experiences of marriage and family following exposure to chemical warfare agents : content analysis of qualitative interviews with survivors in Halabja, Kurdistan-Iraq

Abstract: Objective To study gendered experiences of the longterm effects of a chemical warfare agent (CWA; sulfur mustard). Design Qualitative face-to-face semi-structured in-depth interview study using content analysis approach with thematic analysis and anthropological inquiries. Setting The city of Halabja in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Participants Survivors of CWA (n=16, female:male 10:6, mean age 45.5 years (range 34 to 67)) with lung damage diagnosis and with a range of sociodemographic variables. Results Latent content was expressed as: To get or not to get married? Two categories—social abandonment and uncertain marriage—emerged as expressions of the manifest content. The majority of the participants showed uncertainty as a central concern that affects all decision-making in their private and social life. Uncertainty over marriage and family were huge, corresponding to their fear of giving birth to children with congenital birth defects. Exposure to CWAs was conceptualised in terms of stigmatised illnesses, and consequently resulted in loneliness and social isolation, leading to negative impacts on other aspects of professional and social life. The results demonstrated a gendered pattern: CWA-exposed women were more affected psychosocially than CWA-exposed men. More CWA-exposed women were unemployed, divorced or single, or lived under vulnerable circumstances compared with men. Conclusion Survivors of CWA exposure have developed a sense of gendered uncertainty around getting married and building a family. Sulfur mustard-exposed women, in particular, long to be desired in the community as they face social exclusion. Survivors should be provided evidence-based consultancy to optimise their decisionmaking around marriage and other social and family challenges

From the Colonial Nation-State to a Decolonized Political Community

The colonial/modern nation-state lives on as unique and incomparable to other forms of political organization. And yet, its uniqueness is impossible to think outside of colonialism, genocides, ecological destruction, and the making of majority as superior and opposed to minority. Is the possibility of justice a matter of law? Is a decolonized political community possible? In this Virtual Symposium we attend to Professor Mahmood Mamdani’s book, Neither Settler nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minoritie