Abstract
This article makes a case for public recognition of the quotidian and everyday realities of Afghan women. It argues that it is within these spaces that war-related trauma and social suffering can be understood as part of the body politic, as opposed to the medicalized and individualized model of care. Body politics entails recognizing the emerging agency of subjects as global actors. Based on ethnographic research in Afghanistan in late 2008, the article maintains that the starting point of any work on trauma and recovery must acknowledge the initiatives taken by the people themselves, a task that requires exploration of spaces that we do not otherwise tread. Only then can social and health policies resonate with the lived realities of people.
I am indebted to the women who participated in this study. They were most gracious and generous with their time. I also thank Yalda Noori for her assistance in translation from Dari to English. This research was funded by a Strategic Research Grant from the Social Science Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Notes
These words are used interchangeably as they implicate the sociopolitical body as opposed to the individual body.
Note that trauma is used in a broad sense. It includes suffering and pain as well as process of recovery within the larger units of communities and society.
The organization's name “HOPE” and the names of people mentioned in this manuscript have been changed to protect confidentiality.
According to HOPE, there are close to 70,000 children on the streets of Kabul. HOPE serves 10,000 children in four centers.
The street children range in ages from 6 to 18. Is there not a social distance between two children if one receives education and other is deprived of the opportunity because he or she does not meet the age criterion?
It is not unusual for Afghans to go through short-term training conducted by aid organizations. This is the only way that the organizations can reach civilians. However, the trained personnel are not paid well and are under pressure to follow foreign job profiles.
Family planning programs are geared to encourage Afghans to have smaller families. The global discourse on the developing economies attributes poverty to large families. This is not always the case. Children contribute to the family livelihood either through petty trade (earning $2 a day) or help in the house. The women in this study stated that their source of happiness is their children. This does not mean that the women were opposed to family planning altogether. Their message to the NGOs was to understand their lived realities, including their aspirations and concerns.
Accessibility is used in the broad context: distance of the clinic from the home, money for transportation, and availability of time.
It is not my intent to condemn the work carried out by over 30 aid organizations in Kabul. My goal is to highlight the need for more comprehensive and grassroots-level work that is sustainable and that takes into account the realities of everyday life.
We may note that the Taliban has become a generic term to justify further militarization of Afghanistan. The so-called Taliban may also include resistance fighters who oppose foreign occupation or a system of government imposed from outside. This does not rule out the militant and ultraconservative wing.
I want to reemphasize the point that trauma is social and not confined to the individual body. It therefore requires systemic intervention.
For a detailed account, see Johnson and Leslie (2004, chaps. 7 and 8).
I am compelled to use the term the West because the discourse on Orientalism (asymmetrical relationship between the Occident and the Orient) has been rejuvenated to serve the interests of global imperialism. The divide between the two worlds has widened.
This phrase comes from the work of Das (2007). Women refused to comb their hair and wash themselves during the visit of officials following the 1994 riots in Gujarat. Reoccupying the space of devastation, the women protested their grievous losses. In the case of Afghan women, reoccupation of the space of devastation took place in the context of everyday life, a site where trauma is expressed and recovery takes place.
This does not mean that Afghans are opposed to modernization—the official narrative. Modernization, as first nations communities have argued, has an indigenous base that must be recognized and validated.
Readers will recall that the women's use of the term trauma is social. In other words, they implicate the society for their suffering. To gain an understanding of how people experience suffering, we need to “read” their everyday lives because they do not necessarily resort to language, not an uncommon practice for women subject to trauma (see CitationDossa, 2005; CitationZarowsky, 2004).
I must also note that there are some works that acknowledge Afghan women's perspectives (CitationBrodsky, 2003; CitationKhan, 2008), but the lives of Afghan women have yet to be acknowledged.