Table Of ContentCROSSFIRE
I N
T H E
OF HISTORY
Edited by LAVA ASAAD WOMEN’S
and FAYEZA HASANAT
WAR
RESISTANCE
DISCOURSE
IN THE
GLOBAL
SOUTH
In the Crossfire of History
War Culture
Edited by Daniel Leonard Bernardi
Books in this series address the myriad ways in which warfare informs diverse
cultural practices, as well as the way cultural practices—f rom cinema to social
media— inform the practice of warfare. They illuminate the insights and limita-
tions of critical theories that describe, explain, and politicize the phenomena of
war culture. Traversing both national and intellectual borders, authors from a
wide range of fields and disciplines collectively examine the articulation of war,
its everyday practices, and its impact on individuals and societies throughout
modern history.
For a list of all the titles in the series, please see the last page of the book.
In the Crossfire of History
Women’s War Resistance Discourse in
the Global South
EDITED BY LAVA ASAAD AND FAYEZA HASANAT
Rutgers University Press
New Brunswick, Camden, and Newark, New Jersey, and London
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Asaad, Lava, editor. | Hasanat, Fayeza S., editor.
Title: In the crossfire of history : women’s war resistance discourse in the global South /
edited by Lava Asaad and Fayeza Hasanat.
Description: 1 Edition. | New Brunswick, NJ : Rutgers University Press, [2022] |
Series: War culture | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021056999 | ISBN 9781978830219 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781978830226 (hardback) | ISBN 9781978830233 (epub) | ISBN 9781978830240 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Women and war— Developing countries. | Women— Developing
countries— Social conditions. | Women and war in literature. | Women in art. |
Women— Political activity— Developing countries. | BISAC: POLITICAL SCIENCE /
Peace | SOCIAL SCIENCE / Violence in Society
Classification: LCC HQ1236 .I486 2022 | DDC 305.42— dc23/eng/20220127
LC record available at https:// lccn .loc .gov/ 2021056999
A British Cataloging- in- Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.
This collection copyright © 2022 by Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Individual chapters copyright © 2022 in the names of their authors
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from
the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ
08901. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law.
References to internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author
nor Rutgers University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the
manuscript was prepared.
♾ The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard
for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48- 1992.
www .rutgersuniversitypress .org
Manufactured in the United States of America
To all the women of the Global South
Contents
Introduction: Portraits of Resistance 1
LAVA ASAAD
Part I Representations of Resistance in Art and Media
1 Syrian Women’s Prison Art: Toward a Poetics of Creative
Insurgency 13
STEFANIE SEVCIK
2 Moving beyond Victimhood: Female Agency in Bangladeshi War
Movies 40
FARZANA AKHTER
3 Structuring Jineology within Global Feminism: Representations
of Kurdish Women Fighters in Western Media 53
LAVA ASAAD
Part II Literature and Resistance
4 All the Female Bodies: Female Resistance and Political
Consciousness in Testimonies of the Dirty War in Argentina 69
LUCÍA GARCÍA-S ANTANA
5 The Woman from Tantoura: An Autotheoretical Reading in the
Art of Resistance 89
DOAA OMRAN
6 South Asian Women and Hybrid Identities: Narratives of
Abduction and Displacement in Partition Literature 99
MARGARET HAGEMAN
vii
viii • Contents
7 Writing Solidarity: Women in Bapsi Sidhwa’s Cracking India 108
CAROLYN OWNBEY
8 Sri Lankan Postcolonial Inversion and a “Thousand Mirrors” of
Resistance 123
MOUMIN QUAZI
Part III Advocacy/Activism
9 Kashmiri Women Activists in the Aftermath of the Partition of
India 141
NYLA ALI KHAN
10 Teaching Narratives of Rape Survivors of the Bangladesh War in a
Classroom: A Survey 155
SHAFINUR NAHAR
11 They Fear Us Because We Are Fearless: Women- Led Global
Environmental Advocacy and Its Enemies 168
MATTHEW SPENCER
Conclusion: Detangling Resistance 180
FAYEZA HASANAT
Notes on Contributors 197
Index 201
In the Crossfire of History
Introduction
Portraits of Resistance
LAVA ASAAD
“Paint my portrait so I can be free,” says Shaheeka, the ghost of a Yazidi woman
visiting the narrator of Sabāyā Sinjār (The captives of Sinjar), a magical realist
novel written by the Syrian novelist Salim Barakat in 2016.1 Shaheeka demands
an artistic expression of herself that does not necessarily replicate her as a fugi-
tive escaping her captivity from ISIS, only to die during the arduous journey to
free herself from her rapists. Shaheeka’s spirit seeks to have agency over how the
media and artists represent other Yazidi women who have died like her, who are
being displaced, and who continue to bring their persecutors to justice. Barakat’s
novel is just one example of many literary works that express writers’ admiration
of and sympathies for the myriad struggles of women in the Global South. What
Shaheeka represents is the resilience to preserve her own image even after her
death, and her spirit continues to find ways to denounce her captors’ violation
of her rights as a Yazidi woman and primarily as a human being. In an attempt to
continue to honor women like Shaheeka and to ensure that their stories remain
loud among the cacophony of discourses around women, each chapter in this
volume paints a portrait of certain women fighting their own battles in different
geographical regions. This edited volume is a step toward saving these dissenting
counterdiscourses from being virtually inaudible or clumped within other over-
arching narratives of resistance.
Recently, one of the most extraordinary examples from the Global South
of women surviving and continuing to condemn their perpetrators is Nadia
Murad, an Iraqi Yazidi who was held in captivity by ISIS for three months and
1
