The gendering of victimhood: Western media and the Sinjar genocide

Abstract

This article adopts a gender perspective on war, problematising media attention on Yezidi women since the attacks by ISIS. Sinjari Yezidis’ narratives/subjectivities since 2014 are silenced in Western media reports in favour of a “hyper-visibility” of women’s “injured bodies”, which mobilises a specific narrative of victimhood. Reports from UK and US broadsheet newspapers, plus the BBC, CNN and online publications are analysed, plus new data gathered through fieldwork among Yezidis in Northern Iraq. Western media draw on and reproduce cultural and gender representations, reinstating relations of power infused with orientalist and patriarchal tropes. The focus on women’s bodies moves attention away from the workings of namûs “honour” and the suffering of Yezidi men. Some Yezidi women who became activists, speaking as victims, are heard internationally; the compromises this entails are discussed in light of Fassin and Rechtman’s work on the politics of victimhood.Keywords: Gender; Yezidi; hyper-visibility; media; conflict.Abstract in KurmanjiCinsiyeta civakî ya qurbanîbûnê: Medyaya rojava û jenosîda ŞingalêEv gotar ji perspektîva cinsiyeta civakî re li diyardeya şer dinêre, û bal û rûmalkirina medyayê derheq jinên êzdî de ya ji dema êrîşên DAIŞê ve bi awayekî rexneyî dinirxîne. Ji dema êrîşên 2014an ve şahidî û tecrubeyên şexsî yên êzdiyên Şingalê di raportên medyaya rojavayî de têne bêdengkirin û li şûna wan “bedenên brîndar” ên jinan bi dereceyeke zêde têne dîtin, ku ev yek rê li ber duristbûna hikayêteke qurbanbûnê vedike. Raportên rojnameyên serekî yên Brîtanya û DYA’yê ligel weşanên înternetî yên BBC û CNNê û daneyên ji meydanê di nav êzdiyên li bakurê Îraqê hatî berhevkirin hatine tehlîlkirin. Medyaya rojavayî hem îstifadeyê ji temsîlên çandî û cinsiyetî dike hem jî wan ji nû ve ava dike, ku bi vê yekê re têkiliyên hêzê yên bi hêmayên oryantalîst û babsalar şikl girtî ji nû ve binecih dike. Zîqbûna li ser bedenê jinan balê ji ser babeta “namûsê” û ji êşên mêrên êzdî dide alî. Hindek jinên êzdî yên bûyî çalakvan, ku wek qurban dengê xwe bilind dikin, di qada navneteweyî de têne bihîstin. Rengvedanên menfî yên van kiryaran, li vir, di çarçoveya lêkolînên Fassin û Rechtman yên li ser polîtîkiya qurbaniyê de hatine munaqeşekirin.Abstract in Sorani

Yezidis in ancient India, or Indians in ancient Mesopotamia?: Re-imagining Ancient Yezidi Origins

“…I read these ethnic-nationalisms as historically rooted in unique national contexts, yet also influenced by the diasporic U.S. cultural context. The 2014 targeted violence by ISIS which produced collective trauma for Yezidis in Sinjar, Iraq, has been articulated on an international stage (Buffon & Allison, 2016). My ethnographic study based on oral histories shows that Yezidis continue to define their ethnic identity in opposition to "Muslims," even though Yezidis in the U.S. live largely apart from local Muslim diasporas and have limited interactions with U.S. Muslims.…”

Theorising women and war in Kurdistan: A feminist and critical perspective

“…Kurdish women were also often presented as victims of war, as struggling against multiple oppressions stemming from state violence, patriarchy, and economic deprivation, and as refugees. Investigating the recent circulation of images of Yezidi women, Buffon and Allison (2016) demonstrate that "Sinjari Yezidis' narratives and subjectivities since 2014 are silenced across media representations in the West in favour of a 'hyper-visibility' (Baudrillard, 2005'hyper-visibility' (Baudrillard, , 1990'hyper-visibility' (Baudrillard, , 1982) of women's 'injured bodies', which mobilises a specific narrative of victimhood" (2016: 177). They argue that the media narrative and imaginary presents Yezidi women as in need of saving ("white men saving brown women from brown men"; Spivak, 1994: 93 in Buffon and Allison, 2016, see also McGee, this issue).…”

Building brand Kurdistan: Helly Luv, the gender of nationhood, and the War on Terror

“…Rather, I am trying to argue against the culturalist accounts of honour killings prevalent in popular and scholarly accounts of honour killings. For more on this, see Abu-Lughod (2002), Koğacıoğlu (2004), and Buffon & Allison (2016). (Alinia, 2013: 17).…”

“…This event highlights the tensions within the discourse of Peshmerga-as-liberator, demonstrating the need for more sobering accounts of the ethnonationalist and religious pitfalls in the Brand Kurdistan project. For more, see Buffon and Allison (2016). genocide" earlier in the video, the flags (in the hands of the Kurdish villagers) perform a renewed commitment to liberal humanism and the nation-state system that exists to protect the sanctity of the liberal humanist order.…”

“…This literature highlights not only the ways in which modern nation-states and nationalism are produced in gendered ways, but also the ways in which women's political cultures become transformed through the growing hegemony of nationalism as a political idiom. Attending to these questions in the case of Iraqi Kurdistan is particularly instructive because, unlike many of the case studies in the aforementioned literature, which take place mostly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it represents a fecund site to consider how gender and nationalism intersect in the present world-historical moment animated by financialised capitalism and the global war on terror (King, 2008(King, , 2013Hague, Gill, and Begikhani, 2012;Hardi, 2013;Alinia, 2013;Buffon and Allison, 2016;Toivanen and Başer, 2016).…”