Saving the YPJ, saved by the YPJ: ambivalent agency and the legitimation of intervention in Syria

ABSTRACT

Feminist and postcolonial international relations scholars have demonstrated that representations of Middle Eastern women are used to legitimize wars. This article explores a recent, novel instance of this phenomenon that occurred in Syria. The article argues that Western representations of Kurdish female fighters (members of the Women’s Protection Units, or YPJ) helped to legitimize Operation Inherent Resolve. The article first uses content analysis to demonstrate that Western media reporting about the group, which rendered the YPJ hyper-visible, reflects a change in the discourse, which, I argue, made this foreign policy possible. This is followed by a discourse analysis of English-language documentaries, supported by Turkish-language sources, to show how specifically gendered and Orientalist narratives legitimized Western intervention. I find that rather than being depicted as they are typically, as passive, silent victims (requiring liberation), YPJ women are instead depicted atypically as agentic (as liberators). I then contrast this discourse with original translations of YPJ members’ counter-articulations about their identity in their own words, and show that Kurdish female militants propose radically alternative, non- and anti-Western accounts of their politics. In light of the tension between these two discourses, the article suggests that Western accounts, although endowing agency, suppress possibilities for more subversive (postcolonial) forms of agency.

KEYWORDS:

• Postcolonial agency
• YPJ
• Operation Inherent Resolve
• discourse
• Syria

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

This article was named the winner of the 2021 FTGS Graduate Student Paper Award. The committee commented:The committee was really impressed with Eda’s paper and how well grounded it is in empirical research. This paper also not only brings in new knowledge about the YPJ, but also about alternative, postcolonial concepts of/for feminism, as noted by one committee member. The committee was unanimously of the opinion that this paper would be a valuable addition to the existing literature on postcolonial feminist international relations.

1 Strategic essentialism, in Spivak’s (1984, 11) terms, refers to a strategy that marginalized or subaltern groups may employ, allowing themselves to be represented in an essentialized manner to achieve instrumental goals. By not resisting but rather accepting a hegemonic discourse about themselves, groups may still find a means to exercise material and non-discursive forms of agency. For example, the YPJ attracts material support to itself when its female fighters are represented as aligned with the goals of liberal feminism. However, postcolonial agency typically refers to strategies of resistance toward hegemonic discourses.

2 ISIS’ activities were criminal and genocidal, and I do not wish to minimize this fact. Rather, I hope only to call attention to the Orientalizing language, which for example focuses on ISIS’ “barbarity” (a loaded term), that dominates in Western depictions.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eda Gunaydin

Eda Gunaydin is a graduate student in the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney, Australia. Her key research interests are in the areas of identity and postcolonial and poststructuralist discourse theory in IR.