Towards a countertopography of intimate war: contouring violence and resistance in a South Sudanese diaspora

Abstract

Recent feminist geographic scholarship insists we rethink domestic violence as ‘intimate war’. Using this concept I analyze narratives of violence and resistance articulated by U.S.-resettled South Sudanese women and collected in the wake of a fatal incidence of domestic violence in 2005. One of a spate of intimate partner murders that shook the community at this time, this tragic event spurred debates about shifting gender norms, the stresses and opportunities of life in the diaspora, and the irradicable legacies of war. Bringing Pain and Staeheli's ‘intimacy-geopolitics’ to bear on this particularly violent, momentary and publicized aggression, I situate it within a more complex, quotidian, and dynamic terrain of power. In line with feminist political geography, this analysis complicates scalar distinctions of body, home and nation-state, demonstrating the common foundations of ‘private’, domestic and ‘public’, state-sanctioned violences. Inspired by Katz’s countertopographical approach, I extend our understanding of intimate war by contouring moments of violence and resistance in a diasporic context, over the lifecourse of refugee women, and across their sites of flight, displacement and resettlement. Tracing the mobilities of intimate war in this way productively reveals the spatial and temporal, as well as scalar, folds that may form part of its foundation.

Resumen

La investigación geográfica feminista reciente insiste en que repensemos la violencia doméstica como una ‘guerra íntima’ (Pain 2015). Utilizando este concepto, analizo las narrativas de violencia y resistencia articuladas por las mujeres sursudanesas reubicadas por EE.UU. y recolectadas después de un incidente fatal de violencia doméstica en 2005. Siendo uno de una seguidilla de asesinatos por la pareja íntima en este momento, este evento trágico estimuló debates sobre cambios en las normas de género, los estreses y oportunidades de vida en la diáspora, y el legado irradicable de la guerra. Utilizando ópticas de ‘geopolíticas-de-la-intimidad’ (Pain y Staeheli 2014) para abordar esta agresión particularmente violenta, momentaria y publicitada, la coloco dentro de un terreno más complejo, cotidiano y dinámico de poder. En la misma línea de la geografía política feminista, este análisis complica distinciones escalares del cuerpo, el hogar y el estado-nación, demostrando los cimientos comunes de las violencias ‘privada’, doméstica y ‘pública’, sancionadas por el estado. Inspirada por el abordaje contratopográfico de Katz (2001), extiendo nuestra comprensión de la guerra íntima al contornear los momentos de violencia y resistencia en el contexto diaspórico, a lo largo de la vida de las mujeres refugiadas y a lo largo de sus sitios de huida, desplazamiento y reubicación. Rastreando las movilidades de la guerra íntima de esta forma revela de forma productiva los pliegues espaciales y temporales, así como escalares que pueden formar parte de sus cimientos.

摘要

晚近的女性主义地理学，主张我们必须将家庭暴力重新思考为’亲密战争’（Pain 2015）。我运用此一概念，分析美国重新安置的南苏丹女性所接合、并在2005年一个致命家庭暴力事件之后所搜集的暴力与反抗叙事。作为直至今日仍震惊全社区的亲密伴侣谋杀案之一，此一悲剧事件触发了有关转变的性别常规、离散生活的压力与机会，以及无法清除的战争遗产等辩论。我带入’亲密性—地缘政治’的视角（Pain and Staeheli 2014），检视此一特别暴力、瞬间与公开的侵犯，将之置放于更为复杂、日常且动态的权力场域。本分析依循女权主义政治地理学，复杂化身体、家庭与国族国家之间的尺度特徵，并展现’私领域’的家庭与’公领域’的国家所允许的暴力之普遍基础。我受到凯兹（Katz 2011）的反拓朴学方法所啓发，透过描绘离散脉络中、难民女性的生命轨迹之中，以及在其飞行、迫迁与重新安置中的暴力与反抗时刻，延伸我们对于亲密战争的理解。以此方式追溯亲密战争的动态，有效地揭露可能组成其基础的时空与尺度皱褶。

Keywords:

• Feminist political geography
• intimate geopolitics
• gender
• refugees
• South Sudan

Palabras clave:

• geografía política feminista
• geopolítica íntima
• género
• refugiadas
• Sudan del Sur

关键词:

• 女权主义政治地理学
• 亲密地缘政治
• 性别
• 难民
• 南苏丹

Acknowledgements

My deep thanks go to the South Sudanese research participants, to anti-violence organizers in the South Sudanese community, and to the Refugee Women’s Alliance. Agnes Oswaha and Harriet Dumba offered vital guidance during the research, analysis and writing process. Thank you to Lucy Jarosz, Jennifer Erickson, Ulrich Oslender, and Stephen Young for their close readings of earlier versions of the article, to Jennifer Fluri, Amy Piedalue and Peter Hopkins for their editorial insights, and to Anton Dochtermann and Susan Faria for the crucial time and space their co-parenting afforded me. Lastly, I would like to thank three anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful, rigorous and supportive comments.

Notes

1. This signifier was used by aid organizations like the International Rescue Committee and later popularized in several accounts (Ajak et al. 2005; Bixler 2005).

2. Giir’s attack was closely followed by a similar fatal incident in nearby Kent. In September 2006 a third man, John Both, murdered his wife Nyibol Chuol in Edmonton, Alberta.

3. To be sure, family violence is in no way limited to poor, migrant populations of color or, in turn, absent in middle-upper class, non-migrant and/or white communities. Indeed, researching violence in U.S.-resettled African refugee communities is fraught with the threat of reproducing problematic racist stereotypes of violent black and brown men who bring fixed and entrenched patriarchal values with them as they resettle. In fact, and as many scholars have shown, such violence is an entrenched problem crossing race, class, sexuality, religion, nationality, and other markers of difference (McCue 2008 in Pain 2014a). I foreground this recognition as I attend to the violences experienced within the South Sudanese that are centered here.

4. I volunteered with the Refugee Women’s Alliance in Seattle, Washington (2005–2006) and conducted activist research with a South Sudanese women’s empowerment organization (2007–2009).

5. All interviewee names are pseudonyms.

6. Centering Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp, Newhouse (2013) and Grabska (2010) also document incidences of conviviality and support.

7. These seemingly clear racial/religious lines are, in fact, complex and blurred. In the Sudans, conflict has and continues to erupt around intersecting historical, economic, ethnic-regional, class, and political power inequities.

8. The opposite may also unfold. That is, women’s empowerment may be promoted as central to a strong and just new South Sudan. I take up this gendered nation making, another practice of intimacy-geopolitics, elsewhere (author).

9. For example SEAM Ministry Update (06/2005), Clark (2013).