Constructing Motherhood Identity Against Political Violence: Beyond Crying Mothers (Contributions to International Relations) 3031365372, 9783031365379

Table of contents :
Preface
Contents
Contributors
About the Contributors
Abbreviations
An Introduction to Constructing Motherhood Identity Against Political Violence: Beyond Crying Mothers
Motherhood, Agency, and Violence: The Personal Is Political
References
Mothers Will Stop at Nothing: The Responses of Mothers of Terrorists
Introduction
Literature Review
Mothers’ Responses
Method
Responses by Mothers of Terrorists in the United States
Conclusion
References
Grieving Mothers Who Nurture Sustainable Peace and Women’s Political Agency in Argentina
Introduction
The Rationale
Women’s Political Participation in Argentina
The Military Dictatorship (1976–1983)
Transitioning (1983–2001)
Deficiently Democratic (2001–Present)
Motherhood Activism in Three Vignettes
Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo
Mothers Against Paco
Mom Cultivates Argentina
Empowered Constructions of Motherhood Developed Through Grief
Opposing State Violence Under the Military Dictatorship and the Transition to Democracy
Toward the End of the Transition to Democracy and into the Contemporary Period
Sustainable Peace Under Different Forms of State Violence
Conclusion: Bolstering Women’s Political Agency and Sustainable Peace
References
Empowering or Entrapping in Indigenous Patriarchy? Political Motherhood in India’s Northeast Conflict Zones
Introduction
Northeast Frontier Lands
Naga Mothers: From Apolitical Peace-Work to Political Assertion
Manipur’s Meira Paibis and the Radicalized Nude Mothers Protest
Conclusion
References
Motherhood and the Combatant Role: A Case Study of Women Politically Motivated Prisoners in the Context of Violent Conflict
Introduction
Women Combatants and the Politics of Transgression
Women Combatants and the NI Conflict
Combatant Mothers
Separation and the Maternal Role
Conflict Transformation
Conclusions
References
Motherhood in Iraq: Between the Matrix of Domination and the Matrix of Agency
Introduction
Women and Motherhood in Times of Conflict and War
The Analytical Lens of the Chapter
Iraqi Shi‘i Mothers Under the Reign of Saddam Hussein
When the Battle Was Brought to Their Doorstep
Conclusion
References
Identity, Trauma, and Resistance: The Lived Experience of Palestinian Motherhood in the West Bank
Introduction
Palestinian Women
Dominant Palestinian Gender Role Narratives
The Construction of Women’s Identities in Palestine
The Palestinian National Identity
Motherhood and the Palestinian National Struggle
Bereaved Mothers
Stories of Loss and Healing from Palestinian Mothers in Am’ari Refugee Camp
Collective Struggle and Shared Suffering
Lack of Support
The Role of Religion and Nationalism
The Role of Mothers
Identity, Empowerment, and Resistance
Conclusion
References
In the Shadow of Genocide: Mothers of Srebrenica and New Social Power
Introduction
Bosnian Muslim/Bosniak Political Visibility and Violence
Social and Gendered Context
Victimhood-Motherhood and Memory Activism-Political Activism Nexus
Conclusion: Slow Memory – Or the Institutionalization of the Srebrenica Genocide
References
Women’s Peace Activism and the Construction of Motherhood in North Macedonia
Introduction
Background
Methodology
Women’s Peace Activities in Times of Political Violence and Uncertainty
The First Phase
The Second Phase
Motherhood, Gender Essentialism and Political Participation
Conclusion
References
The Psychopolitics of Motherhood and Political Violence: The Case of the Waiting Mothers in Turkey
Introduction
Women, Motherhood, and Non-State Violent Actors
The Waiting Mothers of Diyarbakir
Creating a New Motherhood Identity
Challenging Social Hierarchies
Unifying the Public for Peace
The Psychopolitics of Motherhood and Political Violence
Conclusion
References
Index

Citation preview

Contributions to International Relations

Deniz Ülke Arıboğan Hamoon Khelghat-Doost   Editors

Constructing Motherhood Identity Against Political Violence Beyond Crying Mothers

Contributions to International Relations

This book series offers an outlet for cutting-edge research on all areas of international relations. Contributions to International Relations (CIR) welcomes theoretically sound and empirically robust monographs, edited volumes and handbooks from various disciplines and approaches on topics such as IR-theory, international security studies, foreign policy, peace and conflict studies, international organization, global governance, international political economy, the history of international relations and related fields. All titles in this series are peer-reviewed.

Deniz Ülke Arıboğan • Hamoon Khelghat-Doost Editors

Constructing Motherhood Identity Against Political Violence Beyond Crying Mothers

Editors Deniz Ülke Arıboğan Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Üsküdar University Üsküdar, Istanbul, Türkiye

Hamoon Khelghat-Doost School of Social and Political Sciences University of Lincoln Lincoln, United Kingdom

ISSN 2731-5061     ISSN 2731-507X (electronic) Contributions to International Relations ISBN 978-3-031-36537-9    ISBN 978-3-031-36538-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36538-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

Preface

In 2013, the Turkish government initiated a Peace Process (also known as The Resolution Process) with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which helped to silence the guns for almost two years. As a part of this process, a “Wise Persons’ Committee” was formed to function as a moderator in between. At the early stages of the process, even “the concept of peace” and the formation of the committee were heavily criticized and perceived as betraying the country. After 40 years of fighting, it was not easy for the whole society to adapt to a new paradigm, and people were very skeptical about this government initiative, which was realized hand in hand with an armed organization that was considered the biggest terrorist group. Since the founding of the PKK, Turkey has lost over 40 thousand people on both sides, creating an internal trauma for Turkish society with long-term consequences such as collective hatred, anger, fear, and despair. As a member of the government-appointed Wise Persons’ Committee in charge of leading the Marmara region in Turkey (including the country’s largest city, Istanbul), I had the opportunity to observe various psychopolitical reactions from various segments of society. It was field work, and during the committee’s term, we held several meetings with not only the groups involved in the Kurdish issue but also the Alawites, Romans, non-Muslims, secular Kemalists, and women’s organizations, in order to frame this peace initiative as a total democratization process. Most of the meetings were chaotic and full of anger, and everyone spoke out about how they felt about each other and about the government. In one of the meetings, at a moment of very high-tense discussion, a lady began to tell her story. She was a soldier’s mother, who lost his only son a couple of years ago in the fight against the PKK.  Although she was extremely sad and still in pain, she calmly expressed her feelings against the war and said she did not want to see any other mother bury her son with her own hands. She started crying and calling for peace, not revenge. The atmosphere in the meeting room has gone into a more emotional state, although it has not completely turned into a new state until another mother starts speaking. The woman in a hijab couldn’t speak Turkish, but she told her story v

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through a Kurdish translator. She has lost her husband to custody, and three of her sons joined the PKK. Two of them were killed, and she wants her only left son back. She continued to say the same things as the soldier’s mother and demanded peace, not revenge. Both mothers understood each other better than all of us, and their only connection with this war-peace issue was simply their motherhood rather than any other ideology. With the manifestations of these mothers, the character of the meeting went totally into a different mode, and people started to talk about the issues, problems, and red lines of the peace negotiations. That day I understood that when it comes to real, personal life stories, it becomes easier for others to create empathy, even if they are not directly involved in or injured by the ongoing situation. As in all kinds of conflict resolution processes, the precondition is the construction of empathy toward the other side, and motherhood is the most powerful instrument for this purpose. Years after the collapse of the Peace Process, another motherhood story inspired us to work on this topic. In 2019, the mother of a PKK militant who was organically abducted by the organization began a sit-in protest in front of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), which is considered an extension of or has close links with the PKK.  Soon after, other mothers started to join the protest, and the only demand that they had was reunification with their children. Neither the party nor the government could have stopped or harmed them because they carried the immunity of motherhood, which gave life to children who were supposed to be killed within a couple of years. The sit-in protest is still ongoing with 450 families, and to date, around 40 have been able to reunite with their children. This book, which we edited with Hamoon Khelghat-Doost, was inspired by the power of mothers who spoke out against violent groups, whether they were government-backed or not. Mothers are not creatures who only cry and pray; they can act and force the actors of political violence into a peaceful environment. Women, in their role as mothers, have the right and power to defend their children by creating a soft but very strong shelter for them, protecting them from all kinds of violent behavior. This book is not on the role of women themselves but on mothers, who can play or already play an anti-violence role. It is a fact that political violence is a multidimensional phenomenon that requires multidimensional antidotes. However, we try to put forward the construction and instrumentalization of a motherhood role for the sake of peace. Against this backdrop, the following chapters have been meticulously crafted to provide answers to these critical issues concerning the construction of motherhood identity in the face of political violence in various geographies around the world. In Chap. 1, and through his lived experience, John, Lord Alderdice explores the importance of motherhood and political violence. His chapter paves the way for a better understanding of the book’s main argument by demonstrating that women should be viewed as people with agency capable of working together – and with men – to change the world for the better. His chapter also urges us to realize the powerful agency of women as a vital element in identifying ways of living that are

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enriched by differences rather than an insistence on a false sense of “sameness” in the name of gender equality. In Chap. 2, Lucy B. Hall explores the conceptual and philosophical themes that run through this volume. By taking us along on her personal journey of motherhood and agency, she explores and thinks about the legacy of feminist scholars who have made it possible to ask questions about motherhood and politics that this book tries to answer. By showing how violence, protection, gender, and agency are all linked to each other, her chapter tries to set the tone for what happens in the empirical details of each chapter that comes after. In Chap. 3, Candice D.  Ortbals asks the important question of how mothers respond to the terrorist actions of their children. Her chapter gives a qualitative content analysis of the answers of 138 mothers whose children lived in the United States or were caught by the United States while fighting or helping Islamist extremists. She looks at how mothers respond to their own children as they try to stay in touch with them, speak up for them in court, and care for them while they are on house arrest or probation. She does this to get a better idea of how mothers might act. The results of her research also show that most of these mothers do not support terrorism or work to make CVE better. In Chap. 4, Crystal Whetstone takes us to Argentina, where political violence has changed from direct, if sometimes veiled, state action during the military dictatorship that ended in 1983 to a mix of open direct action, inaction, and covert action by the state today. She looks at how women’s groups were brought together by mothers’ grief to fight political violence. She does this by asking the most important question: How does motherhood activism contribute to a full and lasting peace in Argentina, where political violence is always changing? By tracing empowered constructions of motherhood through three cases—Madres de Plaza de Mayo (Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo), Madres contra el Paco (Mothers against Paco), and Mamà Cultiva Argentina (Mom Cultivates Argentina)—her chapter demonstrates that women’s political agency enacted through motherhood activism contributes to sustainable peace through the pursuit of accountability as well as economic and political equality and adapts to varying deployments of political violence. In Chap. 5, Rita Manchanda looks at how the Grieving Mother, a symbol of suffering from political violence, could be turned into a female social and political force with the power to challenge the symbol of militarized state repression—the undemocratic AFSPA law—in India’s conflict zones in the Northeast. Her chapter seeks to answer the critical question of what can happen when indigenous ethnic patriarchies are challenged and political motherhood goes beyond gender-­ appropriate norms, modes, and goals. Within a contextual framing of political motherhood in the two adjacent states of Nagaland and Manipur in the region, she examines the scope and empowering limits of political motherhood. In Chap. 6, Fidelma Ashe and Christina Taylor argue that the figure of the woman combatant has become associated with the transgression of traditional gender norms. But even though some parts of being a combatant may be freeing for some groups of women and break with traditional gender roles, combatant women do not go beyond gender norms and ideologies. Using the Northern Ireland (NI) conflict as

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a case study, their chapter is based on interviews with women who fought in the conflict and were jailed between 1971 and 1998. It also uses archival testimony that is open to the public and focuses on how combatants felt about being locked up during this time. Their chapter looks at how being a mother affects women’s time in prison and after they get out. It does this by weaving together the stories of combatant women who have been locked up. In the end, it talks about what this case study can teach international studies about women soldiers. In Chap. 7, through employing “intersectionality” and embracing Patricia Collins’s “Matrix” thinking, Yasmin Khodary seeks to better situate Iraqi mothers’ experience and agency by exploring how they interpret their reality and how they act upon it. By looking at stories and narratives of Iraqi mothers and how their gender identity interlocks with their identity as Sunni or Shi‘i, her chapter provides an insight on how mothers interact with political violence and their agency in the face of oppression, as well as the conditions and possibilities of their agency. She argues that Iraqi mothers’ nationality and gender identity have over time transformed to surpass their ethnic identities in the struggle against political violence and oppression. In Chap. 8, Lili Broekhuysen and Fadwa Al Shaer look at the idea of motherhood in the Occupied Territories of Palestine. They look at the different ways people experience motherhood and the role of nationalism, religion, and solidarity in helping the Palestinian collective society deal with trauma. Their research took the form of an ethnographic study. The goal was to share the voices of Palestinian mothers, who were left out of the conversation because of the occupation and conflict, and to show what motherhood was like for them in their own words. The authors argue that Palestinian mothers understand the power of motherhood as a tool for combating occupation and political violence, which transforms these mothers into change agents. In Chap. 9, and by using the case of the Movement of Mothers of Srebrenica and Žepa Enclaves Association in Bosnia, Jasmina Gavrankapetanović-Redžić argues that the Association exerts corrective morality through its social power to remedy the muddy waters of daily Bosnian politics in accordance with its goals, namely: establishing the facts and the responsibilities for the genocide in the UN-protected area of Srebrenica and Žepa; of preserving and protecting the memory of those who were killed by Bosnian. Her chapter therefore sheds light on the extent of the association’s social power, built on the victimhood-motherhood and memory activism-political activism nexus. In Chap. 10, Elena Spasovska looks at how women in North Macedonia deal with peace activism and how it affects how they see their roles as mothers. In her chapter, she uses data from 24 leaders of women’s non-governmental organizations in three cities in North Macedonia with different ethnic groups to look at how women’s experiences of peace activism relate to their ideas of motherhood. The results of her research show that the mothers were able to work together across political lines and ethnic lines because they had similar experiences as women who faced similar structural barriers and as mothers who worried about the safety and future of their children.

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In Chap. 11, Hamoon Khelghat-Doost and Deniz Ülke Arıboğan argue that the political psychology approach is missing from the post-conflict negotiations and reconfiguration table. It appears that despite their active role in promoting peace, women, and specifically mothers, tend to fade into the background when official peace negotiations begin and the consolidation of peace and restoring public services becomes a formal exercise. Within the conceptual framework of political psychology and by showcasing the mothers of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters in Turkey, this chapter argues that the integration of stigmatized populations can be successful through the reconstruction of motherhood identity. This book gives a nuanced view of female agency in political violence by reviewing and analyzing the political construction of motherhood as a form of social agency against political violence committed by both state and non-state actors in different parts of the world. Istanbul, Turkey Lincoln, United Kingdom

Deniz Ülke Arıboğan Hamoon Khelghat-Doost

Contents

An Introduction to Constructing Motherhood Identity Against Political Violence: Beyond Crying Mothers������������������������������������    1 John Lord Alderdice  Motherhood, Agency, and Violence: The Personal Is Political��������������������    5 Lucy B. Hall Mothers Will Stop at Nothing: The Responses of Mothers of Terrorists������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   21 Candice D. Ortbals Grieving Mothers Who Nurture Sustainable Peace and Women’s Political Agency in Argentina��������������������������������������������������   39 Crystal Whetstone Empowering or Entrapping in Indigenous Patriarchy? Political Motherhood in India’s Northeast Conflict Zones��������������������������   57 Rita Manchanda Motherhood and the Combatant Role: A Case Study of Women Politically Motivated Prisoners in the Context of Violent Conflict��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   75 Fidelma Ashe and Christina Taylor Motherhood in Iraq: Between the Matrix of Domination and the Matrix of Agency��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   91 Yasmin Khodary Identity, Trauma, and Resistance: The Lived Experience of Palestinian Motherhood in the West Bank������������������������������������������������  109 Lili Broekhuysen and Fadwa Al Shaer In the Shadow of Genocide: Mothers of Srebrenica and New Social Power��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  129 Jasmina Gavrankapetanović-Redžić xi

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Women’s Peace Activism and the Construction of Motherhood in North Macedonia��������������������������������������������������������������  145 Elena Spasovska The Psychopolitics of Motherhood and Political Violence: The Case of the Waiting Mothers in Turkey��������������������������������������������������  163 Hamoon Khelghat-Doost and Deniz Ülke Arıboğan Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  179

Contributors

John Lord Alderdice  University of Oxford, Oxford, UK Fadwa Al Shaer  Jerusalem Center for Women, Ramallah, Palestine Deniz Ülke Arıboğan  Üsküdar University, Istanbul, Turkey Fidelma Ashe  Ulster University, Belfast, UK Lili Broekhuysen  Independent Scholar, Frankfurt, Germany Jasmina  Gavrankapetanović-Redžić  Academy of Fine Arts, University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina Lucy B. Hall  University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Hamoon Khelghat-Doost  University of Lincoln, Lincoln, United Kingdom Yasmin Khodary  The British University in Egypt, Cairo, Egypt Rita Manchanda  Independent Consultant, New Delhi, India Candice D. Ortbals  Abilene Christian University, Abilene, TX, USA Elena Spasovska  University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, Australia Christina Taylor  Ulster University, Belfast, UK Crystal Whetstone  Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey

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About the Contributors

John Lord Alderdice  In 1996 when he was elevated to the House of Lords (the Upper Chamber of the British Parliament), John Alderdice was one of the youngest ever life appointees to the House. Since then, he has served as an active Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords. From 2013 to 2022, he was also the Director of Oxford University’s Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict (CRIC) which was absorbed into the Changing Character of War Centre at Pembroke College, University of Oxford, last August when he was appointed Executive Chairman and Director of CCW. From 1987 to 1998, Lord Alderdice was Leader of Northern Ireland’s Alliance Party and one of the negotiators of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. He was then the first Speaker of the new Northern Ireland Assembly until 2004 when he was appointed one of four international commissioners charged with overseeing security normalization in Ireland. From 2005 to 2009, he was President of Liberal International, the global family of some 120 Liberal political parties (of which he is now a Presidente D’Honneur), and from 2010 to 2014, he was Chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party in the House of Lords during the UK Conservative/Liberal Coalition Government. While he retired some years ago from clinical work as a medical practitioner and psychiatrist, he continues, in addition to his work at Pembroke College, as a Senior Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College, Oxford, and Professor of Practice at the University of Wales Trinity St David. He lectures, writes, and consults on the psychology of fundamentalism, radicalization, terrorism, and intractable political violence and has been recognized with many national and international prizes, honorary degrees, and fellowships for his academic and practical contributions in the field including most recently the 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Fadwa Al Shaer  is a Palestinian social and political activist, with more than 30 years of experience working with NGOs, CSOs, and political institutions in Palestine. Her main areas of expertise include gender, violence against women, peace and security, development, strategies, and decision-making. One of Fadwa’s biggest achievements is surely the Jerusalem Center for Women, a non-profit xv

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About the Contributors

political organization defending and promoting women’s rights in East Jerusalem. She is today the Chairperson. Fadwa is currently the head of the Anna Lindh Foundation. She is a former PLO, Senior PA Interior Ministry official, and a head of the International Relations Department in the Higher Council for Youth and Sports. She was also a founder of a historical Archive in the Orient House/East Jerusalem. Fadwa holds a Bachelor’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies and Political Science, and a Master’s degree in International Studies from Birzeit University. Deniz  Ülke  Arıboğan  is a Professor at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Üsküdar University, Istanbul. She is also a senior fellow at the Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict (CRIC), Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford. Prof. Dr. Arıboğan is also a fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has published a number of articles nationally and internationally, as well as 11 books. Among her books are Far East Asia in the Shadow of China, The Map of the Future, Theories of International Relations, Our Language Speaks of Us, From the End of History to the End of Peace, Seeing the Big Picture, and The Wall. Fidelma Ashe  is a Professor in politics and a member of the Transitional Justice Institute. She is author of: Gender and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland: New Themes and Old Problems (2019), published by Routledge; The New Politics of Masculinity: Men, Power and Resistance (2007), also published by Routledge; and she co-authored Contemporary Social and Political Theory: An Introduction (1999), published by Open University Press. Her work in this area has focused on the experiences of hard-to-reach groups marginalized from conflict transitional narratives, processes, and institutions. She was invited to become a member of an international feminist research team conducting research on the theme of “Women and Post-conflict Transformation: Lessons of the Past, Implications for the Future,” which received United States Institute of Peace funding in 2013. Lili Broekhuysen  works at the intersection of development, race, and gender studies as both a researcher and development professional. She holds a Master’s degree from Wageningen University in International Development and Sociology with experience in Jordan, Palestine, China, and South Africa. The research for the paper in this collection was conducted while working at the Jerusalem Center for Women in 2022. Jasmina  Gavrankapetanović-Redžić  is an Associate Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Sarajevo. She holds an MA from the Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts, Japan, and an MSc in Culture and Society from LSE.  She obtained a PhD in Art and Media Theory at the University of Arts, Belgrade. Jasmina was a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science international research fellow at the Faculty of Policy Studies, Doshisha University, Kyoto (2018–2020). Her main fields of research are politics of memory and identity in the Balkans and Okinawa,

About the Contributors

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the entanglement of gender and violence, and material culture. She has published her research in Third Text and Southeastern Europe. Lucy B. Hall  is a Lecturer at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Her research explores questions of gender, protection, and violence. Lucy is the co-editor of Troubling Motherhood: Maternality in Global Politics. Her current research considers the intersections of gender, age, race, and nationality in state responses to disasters and overlapping crises. Hamoon Khelghat-Doost  is a Lecturer at the University of Lincoln, UK, and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Üsküdar University, Istanbul. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the National University of Singapore (NUS). His main fields of interest include gender, forced migration, political violence, international security, terrorism, and sustainable development, with a special focus on the Middle East, North Africa, and Southeast Asia. In addition to articles published in Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Perspectives on Terrorism, and several book chapters, he is the author of the book The Strategic Logic of Women in Jihadi Organisations: From Operation to State Building (Springer, 2021). Dr. KhelghatDoost is also a Next Generation Leader on Gender, Peace, and Security (GPS) at Women In International Security (WIIS), Washington, D.C., United States. A member of the Board of Academia at the Academy of Security, Intelligence, and Risk Studies in Singapore, Dr. Khelghat-Doost has several years of experience conducting research and fieldwork in Iraq, Afghanistan, the ISIS-controlled borders of Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iran. Yasmin Khodary  is a Professor of Political Science in the British University in Egypt. She has been working in the field of development for the past 18 years. She is the winner of Abdul Hameed Shoman Award for Arab Researchers. She also won the UNDP Project-Award on Corruption Risks in Health and Education, the UNDP Project-Award on Youth engagement, the UNDP Project-­Award on fighting corruption, and the BUE young investigators’ Project-Award on gender in peacebuilding. Her fields of interest include contentious politics, gender, masculinity, peacebuilding, governance, and social accountability. Her key publications include: Middle Eastern Women between Oppression and Resistance in the Journal of International Women’s Studies; FGM in Egypt in the Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research; Assessing the impact of gender equality and empowerment in matters of inheritance in Egypt in the Journal of the Middle East and Africa; and Women and Peace Building in Iraq in the Journal of Peace Review. Rita  Manchanda  is a feminist scholar, author, human rights, peace and justice advocate, working on South Asia with particular attention to the rights of marginalized groups: women, religious and ethnic minorities, and forcibly displaced persons. Several of her publications have influenced the Women Peace and Security discourse, including works such as “Women War and Peace in South Asia,” “Women and the Politics of Peace,” “Contesting Infantalisation of Forced Migrant Women,”

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and “Gender Conflict and Forced Migration in India: Human Rights Perspectives.” Her gendered narratives on women negotiating conflict in Kashmir and North East India have framed the “beyond victimhood” agenda. Earlier, as Executive and Research Director of the South Asia Forum for Human Rights (SAFHR), she is editor of the multi-country “SAGE Series in Human Rights Audits of Peace Processes”. She has been Gender Advisor, Commonwealth Technical Fund, a consultant with UN Women, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogues, and SAFERWORLD. Candice  D.  Ortbals  is Professor of Political Science at Abilene Christian University. Her publications relate to state feminism in Spain and gender and terrorism. She has co-authored two books about terrorism: Terrorism and Violent Conflict: Women’s Agency Leadership and Responses (2012) and Terrorism and Women: A Gender Analysis of Perpetrators, Responders and the Public (2018). She has taught at the University of Seville, and she was a winner of the Carrie Chapman Catt Prize for Research on Women and Politics. She has also received numerous grants from the government of Spain to study women in regional and local government. Her current research looks at victims of terrorism and mothers of terrorists. Elena Spasovska  is a Lecturer and Researcher with interest in feminist and women’s activism against nationalism, militarism, neoliberalism, and patriarchy; the political participation of women from diverse backgrounds; peacebuilding; sustainable development; and the women, peace, and security agenda. She completed her PhD at the University in South Australia in 2017 and she has been teaching at all three major universities in Adelaide since then. Her dissertation explores the contributions and challenges of women’s non-governmental organizations in building sustainable peace in the North Macedonia. She teaches in the fields of International Relations, Gender Studies, and Sociology, and her work has been published in various academic publications. Some of her recent independent research projects include a study on women’s agency and the use of nonviolent strategies to promote peace and justice in N. Macedonia, and an analysis of the political representation of women from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in South Australia. Christina Taylor  is a PhD Researcher at the Transitional Justice Institute, Ulster University. Christina’s research, currently in the final stages, centers on understanding the impact of gender on the reintegration experiences of women politically motivated ex-prisoners in Northern Ireland. Crystal Whetstone  is an Assistant Professor at Bilkent University’s Department of International Relations. Her research on gender and international politics examines connections among gender, peace, violence, and security, with a focus on comparative political motherhood movements. She has regional specializations in South Asia and Latin America.

Abbreviations

AFSPA AKP BiH CVE DDR FBI FNR HDP HIJOS

Armed Forces Special Powers Act Justice and Development Party Bosnia and Herzegovina Countering Violent Extremism Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Federal Bureau of Investigation Forum for Naga Reconciliation Peoples’ Democratic Party Sons and Daughters for Identity and Justice Against Forgetting and Silence ICTY International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia IMF International Monetary Fund IQ Intelligence Quotient IR International Relations ISIS Islamic State of Iraq and Syria JMO Yugoslav Muslim Organization MENA Middle East and North Africa NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization NGO Non-Governmental Organization NI Northern Ireland NIOD Netherlands Institute for War Documentation NLA National Liberation Army NMA Naga Mothers Association NNPGs Naga National Political Groups NPMHR Naga Peoples Movement for Human Rights NSCN National Socialist Council of Nagaland NSCN-K National Socialist Council of Nagaland – Khaplang NWU Naga Women’s Union OECD Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development OFA Ohrid Framework Agreement PKK Kurdistan Workers’ Party xix

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PTSD RCMP SAD ULB UN US VAW YNA YPG

Abbreviations

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Royal Canadian Mounted Police Party of Democratic Action Urban Local Bodies United Nations United States Violence Against Women Yugoslav National Army People’s Protection Units

An Introduction to Constructing Motherhood Identity Against Political Violence: Beyond Crying Mothers John Lord Alderdice

Abstract  The word ‘mother’ is used to describe the idealized and denigrated aspects of women. This idealization of some women and denigration of others can interfere with proper human relationships. This realization has led to the idea that women should not be viewed as mere victims, but as people who have agency and can work together with men to change the world for the better. At a societal level, neither men nor women can run society without each other, and finding a way of living with those who are different is what Isaiah Berlin calls ‘pluralism’. Realizing the powerful agency of women reflects a vital element of this necessity to find ways of living with the enrichment provided by difference rather than insisting on a false sameness in the name of equality.

What can a man say that is of value and relevance in introducing this important book about motherhood identity and political violence? My maternal great grandmother died of complications arising from the birth of her seventh child. Her devastated husband blamed himself and took his life. My grandfather was her eldest child and at the tender age of nine, having just lost his mother he found his dead father hanged in a shed near the farmhouse. It left him, at 9 years of age, the eldest of six surviving children and affected him for the rest of his life. The immediate practical consequences for him and his young brothers and sisters were profound, but the repercussions have continued in the family through the generations. Had my great grandmother been able to manage and control her fertility, she would have lived. As a boy I remember the debates in my father’s family about the issue of birth control, particularly after the publication of the Papal Encyclical, Humanae Vitae in 1968. My family are Protestants and there was little sympathy for the position of Pope Paul VI, a celibate man making rulings about such intimate matters of relations J. L. Alderdice (*) Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Ü. Arıboğan, H. Khelghat-Doost (eds.), Constructing Motherhood Identity Against Political Violence, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36538-6_1

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between men and women, but of course it was when I was much older that I really began to appreciate the complexities of the issues involved. Meantime, I idolized my mother. She was beautiful, thoughtful, and sensitive. Everyone loved her, though her own particular early experiences prevented her from fully realizing this. My wife, Joan and I got married when we were still medical students and as young hospital doctors we planned and hoped for our first child. We were delighted when Joan became pregnant, however, that was not the reaction of some of her senior female colleagues. They were very critical of her and said that she was greedy, wanting to have a career and a family. When they were her age those older women doctors had had to make a choice of having either one or the other and they were envious of this young woman who wanted both. I recount these stories to point out that throughout my life questions about the well-being, rights and status of women have been both signally important and emotionally complex, and lest we are tempted to imagine that we are on a linear, trajectory of social evolutionary progress, and that such issues are consigned to the past, recent events in Afghanistan are a distressing reminder that steps forward can be followed by setbacks. The rights and role of women in that country have been radically reversed by the return of a Taliban government. In more general terms our hopes that humanity had learned the lessons of the two terrible world wars of the last century have also received a setback. The second half of the twentieth century saw a commitment to a set of fundamental principles (the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) the building of a context for peaceful international engagement (the United Nations), the development of structures for economic collaboration (the Bretton-Woods institutions and the European Economic Community), and the creation of a system of international humanitarian law (e.g., the International Criminal Court). The evolution of what became known as the ‘international rules-based liberal order’ gave reasons for hope for a better world, further bolstered by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet system. This progress on more peaceful political relations seemed to be accompanied by changing attitudes to the role, well-being, and status of women. In Northern Ireland in the late 1970s I watched as a mass movement of women confronted the largely male terrorist organizations on both sides of the community divide and for a time looked like they might have a major political impact. The potentially powerful impact of a mother in a conflict was again demonstrated in Northern Ireland in 1981. Irish Republican prisoners had been engaging in increasingly radical protests since 1976 culminating in a hunger strike. All efforts by the British and Irish Governments, civil society, and the international community failed to bring it to an end. Ten of the prisoners starved themselves to death with huge consequent protests, violence, and political radicalization in the outside society. The hunger strike only began to end when the mother of Paddy Quinn insisted on medical intervention to save his life, and this was followed by other mothers and families doing the same. Women in general and mothers in particular were showing how they could have a powerful impact on society, including communities in profound conflict. Britain elected its first woman Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher in 1979, and since then there have been two more women British Prime Ministers and women have occupied almost every senior government role in both Houses of the British Parliament. Surely this shows that women should not be

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seen as powerless victims and that things are going in the right direction? What is the need to write another book about the issue? Unfortunately, as our expectations of a stable, peaceful, just international order have been set back, so our hopes that women would soon be given their rightful place in our societies around the world have not been fulfilled. But the picture is more complicated than may at first appear. Of course, we find ourselves repelled by negative depictions of women and we have no difficulty criticizing such attitudes. But denigration is the flip side of idealization, as was pointed out in the seminal book Mother, Madonna, Whore, written by my friend and colleague, Estela Welldon and first published in 1988. Sexual prejudice comes in many forms. It is not only found where women are devalued and treated as inferior. It also appears when, as the Madonna, or even as the mother, they are idealized as though they can do no wrong. By putting them on that ‘pedestal’ they cannot also be entirely human. This interferes with here-and-­ now real relations, as when the young man criticizes his wife’s meals as being not as good as those his mother cooked. Nothing the young woman does can ever be so good as his idealized mother, and because he cannot contemplate any fault in his mother, he cannot appreciate the virtues and abilities of his wife. Nor can he see that his ‘perfect’ mother may well have contributed to this skew in relations by idealizing him and conveying the implication that no-one could be good enough for her son. This idealization of some women and denigration of others stands in the way of proper human relationships with either and in this new book a further version of the skew in relations is addressed by pointing out that women should not simply be regarded as ‘victims’ in situations of conflict. They can have agency. As I mentioned previously women during the Northern Ireland Troubles did take power into their own hands, in the late 1970s, in the 1980s and then during the 1990s, as exemplified by the role played by the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition in the negotiation of the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement process. They refused to be powerless. One casualty of any insistence that women should neither be denigrated nor idealized is the proposition that violent political conflict is entirely the fault of men and that if women were to run global affairs all wars would end because they would care more about the welfare of people and not indulge in foolish men’s games. One of the shocking truths unearthed by Estela Welldon in her work as a forensic psychiatrist was that physical and sexual abuse of children were not confined to men. Women, including mothers, could also be guilty of such abuse, though often in different ways. The consequence of realizing that while we are not all the same, we are all human beings, is that we must face some unpleasant realities about ourselves. However, it is also true that we are then compensated by discovering some marvellous possibilities that had been hidden from us by our blind spots. In the example quoted above, if the young man can give up his idealization of his mother (and let go of her idealization of him) he has the possibility of a much better real relationship with his wife. In this book, a range of authors help us to realize that women should not be viewed as mere victims, but as people who have agency and so can work together, and with men, to change our world for the better. As far back as Aristophanes, the

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ancient Greek playwright, there has been a recognition that our search for wholeness and completion will forever be frustrated unless we find the ‘other half’ of ourselves. At a societal level this means that neither men nor women can run society without each other, but with each other whole new opportunities become possible. Finding a way of living with those who are different is what Isaiah Berlin calls ‘pluralism’. Realizing the powerful agency of women reflects a vital element of this necessity to find ways of living with the enrichment provided by difference rather than to insist on a false sameness in the name of equality. That is why I think that this book is about even more than appears in its title.

Motherhood, Agency, and Violence: The Personal Is Political Lucy B. Hall

Abstract  Motherhood does not translate in any straightforward or predictable way into an erasure or denial of agency, yet women’s agency is mitigated through the (assumed) procreative potential of bodies. In this chapter, I explore the conceptual and philosophical themes that run through this beautifully curated volume. I write myself into this chapter in an explicitly feminist and political manner to reflect on my own intellectual and personal experiences of motherhood and agency. I explore and reflect on the legacy of feminist scholars who have created the analytical space to ask questions of motherhood and politics that this book seeks to address. Each chapter engages with questions of care, positionality, and ethics and this informed my decision to discuss and reflect on these themes here. In addition to discussing each chapter of this volume in turn, I also take apart and examine motherhood, agency, and violence in relation to so-called protective institutions like the family and the state. By unravelling the interconnections between violence, protection, gender, and agency I seek to set the tone for what unfolds in the empirical details of each chapter that follows.

Logics of care and parenthood continue to be conceptual and empirical interests of mine, and I’m delighted to have been given the opportunity to explore this in this introduction. The chapters that follow, which I will discuss briefly here, are a testament to feminist research on bodies and demonstrate that bodies matter (Purnell, 2021) and gender matters (Shepherd & Hamilton, 2022) in the study and practice of International Relations. What drives this volume and my reading of the chapters that follow is a feminist analytical engine (to paraphrase Hansen, 2006, p. 17) that generates the epistemological and ontological possibility to explore how mothers are agential, and simultaneously constrained, policed, and surveilled. What I seek to explore in this chapter are the conceptual and ethical undercurrents of this book L. B. Hall (*) University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Ü. Arıboğan, H. Khelghat-Doost (eds.), Constructing Motherhood Identity Against Political Violence, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36538-6_2

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and bring them into conversation with the literature on feminist epistemologies, ontologies, and methodologies. In doing so I hope to create a springboard for readers to dive into the volume and the rich empirical and conceptual details that unfold across these pages. I want to venture out and tell a story about where my maternal body ‘met’ the discipline of IR, as this is a book about mothers and questions the links and contradictions of familial, local, state, regional and global politics. By sharing this story, my intention is to introduce the reader to the central conceptual and ethical threads weaved throughout this book. The halfway point of my PhD coincided with my 36th week of pregnancy. I was preparing to take 6 months of leave and my supervisor made the excellent suggestion of (re)writing an abstract so when I returned to my research the questions I was asking and how I set out to answer them were clearly documented for myself. Aside from being excellent advice to anyone – pregnant or otherwise – halfway through a PhD, I found that by articulating what I had been circling around in my writing, during interviews and at those random times where your mind becomes very clear (washing the dishes or brushing my teeth) was that my thoughts both analytically and viscerally coalesced around the word maternity. Perhaps it was my way of rejecting the masculine Cartesian mind/body dualism. Perhaps this is indulgent, poorly executed autoethnography. But why Descartes and his dualism? Marysia Zalewski writes that the Cartesian dualism requires a neat, hierarchical ordering of mind over body (1993, pp. 19–20). That the mind is the home of reason and rationality and the body and its sensations something to be ignored or overcome (Zalewski, 1993, pp.  19–20). The consequence of the Cartesian epistemological framework is the (arbitrary) separation of being from knowing (Zalewski, 1993, p. 20). Following Zalewski, to claim that how we access and generate knowledge is somehow disconnected from our ‘ontological existence’ is a remarkable ‘sleight of hand’ (1993, p. 20). What this volume provides is a feminist corrective to this sleight of hand and challenges white, western, androcentric assumptions that legitimize certain forms of knowledge over others. I find solace in Zalewski’s work, as knowledge generation that separates being from knowing had always seemed an untenable practice in my mind/body. Knowledge generation for me had always been something I felt, sensed, and embodied and this came into focus as I moved from pregnant PhD candidate to mother and back again in a rather discombobulated form. During this moment of flux, I knew that identifying what I termed the logic of maternity was not particularly groundbreaking. The multitude of ways that women are understood, granted rights, and agency through motherhood had been well established in feminist literature (inter alia Yuval-Davis & Anthias, 1989; Pettman, 1996; Yuval-Davis, 1997; Pateman, 2005). Returning to this literature helped me not only navigate that uneasy but exciting phase of doctoral research of moving from data collection to analysis and writing. It also helped me navigate becoming a parent and the gendered forms of agency it affords, as well as its constraints. My research then, as it still is now, was about policies and legal norms that govern protection. The familiar discourse of ‘women and children’ (Enloe, 1990; Puechguirbal, 2010) became a central focus of my analysis. What was clear to me was why this discourse of women and children (Enloe, 1990) was so salient and compelling: it was held together by a maternal body. Drawing on Adrienne Rich’s

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work, Nadine Puechguirbal writes ‘that women are defined according to their biology, as objects of maternity not as social subjects with rights of their own’ (2010, p.  176). At this point in my doctoral research and my pregnancy Puechguirbal’s words resonated, deeply. I increasingly felt defined by biology and that my identity as mother started to eclipse that of how I identified as researcher, friend, daughter, partner, or colleague. However, during this eclipse, I maintained rights of my own during pregnancy and childbirth, many I think due to class, race, and cisgender privilege. When I disclosed my pregnancy to my doctor, they asked without judgement ‘is it wished for?’ (translated from Dutch, ‘is het gewenst’, could also be understood as ‘is it wanted?’). My response was ‘yes’ but I did appreciate the space that question created to say ‘no’ without expectations or assumptions connected to my age, whiteness, marital status, gender, or able-bodiness given that where I live safe abortions are generally accessible. My middle-class privilege was reflected in my access to quality care and support both pre- and post-partum. My whiteness meant that my pain was taken seriously and that I was less likely to die or experience obstetric violence during childbirth (see Taylor, 2020). My cisgender privilege contributed to a positive birthing experience and a sense of post-partum well-being (Duckett & Ruud, 2019). My decision to become pregnant and stay pregnant was my own and the risk of death, injury, and obstetric violence were mitigated through a series of intersecting privileges. My reflections here are partly inspired by my experience and my reading of Parvati Raghuram’s work (2021). Raghuram writes that recognizing the intersections of race, class, gender identity, and sexuality ‘makes a difference to how gendered care is practiced, and hence, to how care should be theorized’ (2021, p. 615, see also  Hankivsky, 2014). Several chapters in this volume  explore narratives of care, motherhood, and violence and how they are practised and theorized in relation to gender and class (Gavrankepetanovic-Redzic, this volume), colonialism (Broekhuysen and Al Shaer, this volume), ethnicity, sexuality, and indigeneity (Manchanda, this volumne), and health (Ashe & Taylor, this volume). I found these intersecting privileges surface frequently as I ventured out as a parent into the ‘public sphere’. Here is where I found the mix of agency and constraint fascinating, frustrating and at times deeply troubling. I benefitted from the provision of social welfare benefits and my whiteness shielded me from institutional racism. Unlike many families in the Netherlands who were profiled based on race and ethnicity, and their childcare benefits reduced and/or rescinded in what became known as the ‘toeslagen affaire’ (Childcare Benefits Scandal) (Hutten & Mustafa, 2021, p. 2041; Wekker, 2022, p. 209). As Gloria Wekker explains, the childcare benefits scandal targeted people of color and wrongly accused of them of fraudulently claiming childcare benefits (2022, p. 209). As this scandal unfolded and the consequences and absence of justice lingers on, it is imperative that when we explore questions of motherhood and agency and violence, that we do not disinter gender from race. The arrival of my second baby coincided with the end of my doctoral research and the signing of a permanent teaching contract at the University of Amsterdam. The job security, and class and economic privilege that come with that are not lost on me, neither are the times in which I felt welcomed, supported, and encouraged as

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a parent in academia. Myself and my young baby were welcomed to faculty dinners, and I have fond memories of colleagues offering to hold my baby so I could enjoy dinner. I felt heartened by other women who brought babies along to conferences, fed them during plenary sessions and therefore did the same myself. I remember the response from a colleague when I sat with my baby near the exit during a keynote address and explained that if my baby cried I would quickly and quietly leave as to not disturb. Her reply still evokes feelings of gratitude. She simply stated, “my dear, we’re feminists, who study fascism – we can handle a crying baby”. I felt a sense of relief that I was able to bring myself both – researcher and parent – into these spaces and feel support. I am grateful for these moments, as there were other times where I felt unwelcome. Questions from senior colleagues during conversations about my career trajectory  – “well, are you planning on having another baby?” Questions in civil society spaces – “are you really bringing your baby to a protest march?!”. These questions, regardless of their intent, were questions of agency, what you can and cannot do, what is or is not appropriate. In these moments, very private decisions concerning my family and how I parented were deemed relevant for public consumption and judgement. Apparently, my career decisions and participation in public protest could not be disentangled from the choices I made concerning reproduction and parenting. Furthermore, the appropriateness of these decisions was understood exclusively in relation to maternal subjectivity. This is where maternal logics become identifiable. To paraphrase Laura Shepherd, gendered logics demarcate and govern standards of appropriate behaviours for particular bodies (2013, p. 14). To be taken seriously in both my academic career and in civil society spaces, I was expected to extricate myself from my children. This seemed illogical, unpractical, sexist, and ignored that much of my motivation to be involved in protesting the use of fossil fuels is done in the interest of ensuring that future generations can inhabit a safe and healthy planet. Sigh. This series of reflections of my own experiences of motherhood, and how I interpret them through an intersectional lens brings forth an expressly personal politics of maternity. When navigating questions of agency in my research, professional and personal interactions I often find myself returning to Cynthia Cockburn’s work. I have mentioned here a few times where I have benefitted and even enjoyed being treated as a mother and other times where I would have preferred to be seen as an individual. Cockburn suggests that to understand the complex web of possibilities and limitations that come with motherhood (or parenting) we need to ask mothers – ‘they will know’ (2001, p. 29). And this is exactly what the authors in this volume have done with great care and (feminist) curiosity. They have asked, engaged, listened, and brought this knowledge to the forefront of questions concerning motherhood and violence. How these questions compel us to think across feminist scholarship on motherhood, care, positionality, and ethics drives this introductory chapter and underlines the chapters that follow. Before I discuss each chapter in turn, I want to first position this volume in conversation with literature on feminist epistemologies, ontologies, and methodologies and explore the intermingling of reflexivity, positionality, the relational nature of research and care ethics.

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What underpins this book is a deep sense of the ‘inescapably relational’ practice of research (Shepherd, 2016, p. 10). While I find it hard to extricate the relational nature of research from reflexivity, positionality, and care ethics, in the next section I discuss them in turn to weave together the patterns that emerged in the chapters to follow. I start by returning to feminist work on situated knowledge and standpoint epistemology, then move to questions on feminist reflexivity, positionality, and the relational nature of research. This, as I discuss, is linked to an ethics of care expressed and enacted in these chapters across private disclosures, over cups of tea or coffee, through  invitations into homely spaces and exchanges about violence, loss, grief, love, despair, hope and change. I bring these threads together by drawing on the literature that has explored the ethics of care (Robinson, 2006, 2011, 2013, 2018, 2020), and, as I illustrate, creates the intellectual space to take parents, mothers, and mothering seriously in studies of security and violence. Returning to Zalewski, my discussion of standpoint feminist theory is not an attempt to claim that it is the approach that feminists should adopt nor is it a complete and flawless theory (1993, p. 30). Sidenote, show me the theory that claims to be complete and flawless, I’m intrigued! While the authors of these chapters do not explicitly refer to situated knowledge, or standpoint epistemologies (they may indeed reject this characterization of their work), what struck me reading these chapters is how they are attuned to understanding violence through women’s eyes, and exploring the material conditions of their everyday lives, ‘focusing on the situated knowledge of those outside the dominant power structures but assuming no unified or set of experiences’ (Enarson, 1998, p.  157). Annica Kronsell’s (2005) contribution to debates about the limitations and possibilities of feminist standpoint theory is a useful guide here to navigate this volume. Kronsell writes that we come to know the world and our place in it through everyday practices (2005, p. 290). This creates epistemological vantage points to produce knowledge by being attuned to the everyday experiences of women and ‘their activities and interactions in a gendered world’ (Kronsell, 2005, p.  290). While reading these chapters, I found myself gravitating towards questions of standpoint feminist theory and the situatedness of knowledge. Speaking of everyday practices, my thoughts for this chapter coincided with a rather serendipitous conversation with a friend about pregnancy, babies, and parenthood. We met for coffee on a sunny day, near a shady park, my friend’s 3-month-old baby wrapped snugly to her chest. Our conversation veered towards Donna Harraway’s Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective (1988) (also merci Marie). My senses shifted between the smell of coffee and the smell of her baby’s warm head, and our conversation shifted between our everyday situatedness, reproductive choices, and Harraway. Delving back into the literature that explored situated knowledge in the discipline of IR (Kurki, 2015; Sylvester, 2011) helped me surface a theme that I kept circling back to when reading the chapters of this book. Milja Kurki writes that ‘standpoint epistemology emphasizes that to “get at” the world, which is real and causal on us, we need to think seriously about the positionality of knowledge “in the world” (Kurki, 2015, p.  783). This volume exemplifies what it means to take

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positionality seriously and makes a compelling and unique contribution to conversations about positionality. The empirical details that unfold in each chapter emerge from the care taken to consider our relationships in the doing of research and how it constitutes the self in research encounters. As I read these chapters, I was able to make more sense of them by drawing from Laura Shepherd’s reflections on feminist research ethics and the self. Shepherd, in her article, ‘Research as Gendered Intervention: Feminist Research Ethics and the Self in the Research Encounter’ (2016) reflects on the ways in which ‘I’ is constituted, disciplined, and silenced through research practices and what this means for doing feminist research (2016, p. 2). Shepherd’s reflections on positionality and feminist research ethics are particularly fitting in the context of this book and the themes these chapters explore. Shepherd reminds us that ‘positionality is inescapably relational’ (2016, p.  10). What I found throughout these chapters is an acute awareness of the ‘inescapably relational’ nature of research on gender, violence, and mothers (Shepherd, 2016, p. 10 emphasis mine). What becomes so clear to me across these chapters is this: to take seriously the politics of positionality, is to take seriously the relational nature of research. To borrow from Roxani Krystalli: Acknowledging the relational nature, therefore, also involves tracing the intellectual and emotional lines that shape the research journey, and ensuring those lines are visible in the outputs that result from this research (2023, p. 41).

What I hope readers of volume will find is a feminist attentiveness to the intellectual and emotional lines that shaped a variety of research journeys. Further, I am encouraged (or perhaps reassured) that Krystalli reminds us that reflexivity need not be defensive or apologetic. This prompts me to reflect on my apology above for the personal, reflective opening of this chapter. I find the intermingling of the intellectual and emotional lines of research journeys endlessly fascinating, so I hope to have conveyed a sense of that here to set the tone for this volume. Questions of care, positionality, and ethics also bring us back into conversation with Sara Ruddick’s work on maternal ethics (1989). Reflecting on the influence of Ruddick’s maternal ethics in feminist studies of peace and security, Catia Confortini and Annick Wibben note that ‘Ruddick’s work was part of a larger tradition of feminist thought that brought to light how a quintessentially “private” and “sentimentally honored and often secretly despised” activity – mothering – involved thinking’ (2022, p. 320 emphases in original). In the context of this book, it is important to recognize the influence of Ruddick’s philosophical work in the study of global politics, gender and (in)security, and the space Ruddick’s work created to ask questions of mothering, care, love, and labour. I find Andrea O’Rielly’s reflections on their encounter with Ruddick’s Maternal Thinking (1989) resonates with my own and how the ‘personal’ questions of pregnancy and parenting that arose during my doctoral research found their way into my analysis. O’Rielly highlights that Ruddick’s work ‘enabled future scholars to analyze the experience and work or practice of mothering as distinct from the identity of mothers’ (O’Reilly, 2009, p.  296). Meaning mothering can be performed by

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anyone of any gender who commits themselves to the ‘demands of maternal practice’ (O’Reilly, 2009, p. 296). The impact of Ruddick’s work on the field of feminist peace studies and more broadly in the discipline of IR has been rightly celebrated and honoured. If this volume sparks further feminist curiosity (Enloe, 2004; Krystalli, 2023) I invite readers to delve deeper into the rich inheritance and ‘epistemic value’ (Robinson & Confortini, 2014, p. 41) of Maternal Thinking (Ruddick, 1989). I often find myself returning and re-reading the articles from the Symposium: Maternal thinking for international relations? Papers in honor of Sara Ruddick (2014). The articles of this symposium have been for me an important generative space for my own reflection and engagement with questions of motherhood and security (see Weissman & Hall, 2019). Before moving this discussion to care ethics in the context of this volume, in closing this short reflection on Ruddick’s legacy, it is important to note that Maternal Thinking ‘eschews essentialist’ assumptions about mothering and reminds us that mothers are not always kind, peaceful and nurturing, they can also be violent (Robinson & Confortini, 2014, p. 41). Ruddick has been suitably described as one of the ‘founding scholars’ of feminist IR (Tickner & Sjoberg, 2011, p. x) and this volume makes an important contribution in honouring both Ruddick’s work and the work that it has inspired. As Robinson and Confortini write, ‘care ethicists have relied heavily on Ruddick’s arguments on mothering practices, and how these give rise to a relational, contextual approach to morality’ (2014, p. 31). Feminist theorizing on care ethics not only takes us back to Ruddick’s Maternal Thinking (1989) but takes us to an emerging research agenda that places relational positionality and care ethics at its core. Writing on love and care, Roxani Krystalli and Phillip Schulz note that: The ethics of care sees people as relational, connected, interdependent, and inherently vulnerable, recognizing the moral value and importance of relations and the inescapable reality that care is universally required for all human beings to survive (2022, p. 8).

While Shepherd (2016) refers to positionality as inescapably relational, Krystalli and Schulz (2022) refer to the inescapable reality of care. My (re)reading of Shepherd (2016) and Krystalli and Schulz (2022) in the context of questions of mothering, agency and violence illuminates the ethics and practices of care and positionality that unfold and underpin the chapters to follow. In doing so, the authors here highlight that positionality requires care and care is inescapable (we don’t survive without care). This volume offers a brilliantly curated collection of empirical research, and an intellectual space to revisit feminist ethics, positionality, and the relational nature of research. Before I discuss each chapter in turn, I will further substantiate what I mean by the logic of maternal agency, and how this brings together the central conceptual and empirical contributions this volume makes. As discussed above for women, political subjectivity is often contingent on motherhood, and this both constrains and enables different forms of agency. Logics of maternity and agency intersect in the construction of maternal agency, that as a logic that can both deny and confer agency. Meaning that while the logic of maternity denies agency, there is also space

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for maternal logics to confer certain women agency. The ways in which maternal logics can both constrain and enable agency indicates the instability of gendered logics and the ways in which they construct both limitations and possibilities. Continuing to reflect on mothering as a site of meaning-making, I now turn to focus on the making meaning of agency in relation to motherhood and violence. The logic of maternity was the clunky term I applied to make sense of the data and references to women as mothers, and women and children that I encountered in my research. To more deeply conceptualize these logics of maternity, I turned a lineage of feminist work that has demonstrated how women are often understood and positions ‘as objects of maternity not as social subjects with rights of their own’ (Puechguirbal, 2010, p. 176). In their book, States of Conflict: Gender, Violence and Resistance Jacobs, Jacobsen and Marchbank refer to it as the ‘essential and obvious link between women and motherhood’ (Jacobs et  al., 2000, p.  13). The lumping together of women and children ‘essentializes the maternal relationship’ (Hyndman, 2004, p. 203). This produces a new category of human beings, called ‘women-and-children’, ‘with children just being an extension of women’s own body and soul’ (Puechguirbal, 2004, p. 5). The logic of maternity reproduces the assumption that ‘women’s peaceful nature and their perceived aversion to risk’ stem from their natural capacity as mothers (MacKenzie, 2009, p.  247). These assumptions, or logics as I call them organize and create and constrain agency. My use of the term maternal agency draws from Linda Åhäll’s work on political violence, motherhood, and agency (2012a). Åhäll writes that ‘female agency in political violence is communicated and negotiated through motherhood’ (2012b, p. 287). Applying Åhäll’s work here, I suggest that women’s agency in relation to political violence is constituted through motherhood, although not in any straightforward or predictable way. As Meredith Loken’s work on visual representations of mothers in armed conflict highlights there is something ‘uniquely potent’ when it comes to images that juxtapose mothers and militancy (2021, p. 24). Expanding on Åhäll, Loken writes that ‘mothering is a site of meaning-making found everywhere in interpretations of political violence’ (2021, p. 24). The chapters in this book trace gender, agency, and violence in a series of diverse empirical locations. This expands on Åhäll’s (2012a, b) work by highlighting the complex and contradictory ways that women, as mothers are understood, positioned, and manoeuvred. Maternal agency creates an array of conflicting opportunities and constraints around what is meant by gender, violence, and security. For example, as Michelle Carreon and Valentine Moghadam write, motherhood ‘can imply two forms of nurturing or protection – one by sustenance and the other by armed struggle’ (2015, p. 19). Maternal agency creates the possibility for activism against war and violence and mobilization for war and violence. To explore this paradox, I will discuss several examples to highlight both the existing literature that this volume builds on in relation to motherhood, agency, and violence and to demonstrate the ways in which maternity permits certain kinds of agency. In turn the permissible kinds of agency explored here translate into questions of who is taken seriously, who is listened to and given access to resources, and who is not.

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As Carol Cohn and Ruth  Jacobsen note, the position of mothers mobilizing against violence and war produces different results (2013, p. 108). The “Mothers Movement” in the former Yugoslavia was violently repressed, whereas the Madres in Argentina were afforded relative protection, agency, and legitimacy (Cohn & Jacobsen, 2013, p. 108). This indicates the instability of the meaning of both gender and protection, as the assumption that women, as maternal subjects will always be the referent object of protection does not hold up in relation to the experience of women in the former Yugoslavia (Korac, 2003 in Cohn & Jacobsen, 2013). Carreon and Moghadam also illustrate that the Mourning Mothers of Iran also faced state repression and violence indicating that although the maternalist frame resonates across the globe, it does not always provide a ‘safe collective action frame’ (2015, p. 23). Shepherd highlights how it is certain kinds of mothers or mothering practices that are deemed legitimate, agential whereas others are represented as deviant, illegitimate (Shepherd, 2010, p. 31). For example, the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp initially used symbols of idealized motherhood (nappies and toys) to secure legitimacy (Shepherd, 2010, p. 31). When the Peace Camp lost its collective maternal identity and widened to include ‘deviant’ women questioning the gender order that prefigured the nuclear missiles the Camp was represented as a coven of witches, a threat to the state, the family and democracy (Young, 1990, p. 2 in Shepherd, 2010, p. 31). The multiple ways in which gender and violence are configured in these examples illustrate that motherhood, gender and violence do not read onto each other in straightforward ways. Maternal agency can challenge the state’s legitimate monopoly on violence. In response, the state can either afford a degree of protection (as in the case of the Madres) or violently repress (as in the case of the Mourning Mothers in Iran). At times gender and violence appear inverted, the state is the object to be protected from a threatening maternal identity, rather than a state deriving legitimacy on the basis of providing security to mothers. When it comes to opposition and resistance to violence, the maternal logic is also no guarantee of protection. Meaning that even though at times it confers a degree of legitimacy and agency (see Mhajne & Whetstone, 2018), it also brings about serious limitations, including the risk of oppression and violence. Maternal agency affords certain women, or more precisely certain mothers, political legitimacy and therefore protection (Shepherd, 2010, p. 31). Maternal agency and its implications for how security is discursively constituted suggest that states are not always willing and able to provide protection. These examples indicate three important aspects of gender and agency, (i) maternal agency does not readily translate to a politics of peace; (ii) maternal subjectivity creates the discursive potential for some mothers to exercise a degree of agency and be taken seriously by states, international institutions and families; and (iii) women are not equally granted a degree of agency and protection, maternal agency may also be met with violent state repression. Maternal agency can be both a source of legitimacy and repression. This suggests how the discourses of gender, violence, and security are highly contextual, and inherently unstable. Like much of what I have discussed so far, questions of gender and protection have played an important

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role in feminist forays into the discipline of IR. For example, violence and war, as a cultural construction depends upon a ‘myth’ of protection that upholds the legitimacy of violence (Sjoberg & Ann Tickner, 2013, p.  214). As Iris Marion Young writes, ‘states do not justify their wars by appealing to sentiments of greed or desire for conquest; they appeal to their role as protectors’ (2003, p. 2). As mentioned above, questions of gender, violence, and legitimacy – whether it be the legitimacy of states, international institutions, or institutions like the (patriarchal) family – are infused with narratives of motherhood and protection. The family was (and arguably still is) assumed to be a private space that protects women and children and the state functions according to similar logics, the logic of masculinist protection (Young, 2003). Yet both the family, the state and the international community frequently abscond from their protective responsibilities and/or are the source of gendered insecurity and violence. The empirical details that unfold across the chapters in this volume, which I will now discuss in turn, illustrate the masculine assumptions embedded in narratives of protection are intimately and violently linked to mothers. Whetsone’s chapter on women’s agency in Argentina expands upon this question of state protection, mothers, and violence. Whetstone’s contribution provides a detailed analysis of three cases of maternal social movements in Argentina, starting with the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, Madres contra el Paco and Mama Cultiva Argentina. The chapter traces these social movements across several transitions in Argentina, from military dictatorship (1976–1983), to democracy (1983–2001) to ‘deficiently’ democratic (2011–now). Whetstone’s chapter illustrates how maternal agency, while constrained by state, military, and neoliberal forces, mobilizes social action to confront an array of injustices, from torture, drug use, and femicide. This chapter expands and deepens our knowledge of maternal agency in Argentina starting with the Madres de Plaza de Mayo and moving into two cases concerning drug use and cultivation. This is a unique insight into the ways in which ‘illicit’ drug economies are deeply gendered and how maternal agency is bound to the cultivation and distribution of paco and cannabis as well as advocating for police and legal reform to minimize the harm of addictive substances like paco. Turning now to Jasmina Gavrankepetanovic-Redzic’s chapter, what strikes me as an interesting theme connected this chapter to Whetstone’s is the multiple ways that maternal agency is constituted by and through violence. As Gavrankepetanovic-­ Redzic highlights, the gendered nature of the Srebrenica genocide is inherently linked to the establishment of Mothers of Srebrenica and Zepa Enclaves Association (hereafter The Mothers). The activities of The Mothers, as Gavrankepetanovic-­ Redzic’s discusses, range from blocking roads and holding vigils on the 11th of every month, to gathering evidence and providing witness testimonies to the prosecutors at the International Criminal Tribunal of the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Gavrankepetanovic-Redzic’s chapter weaves together themes of genocidal violence, gender and class and provides exquisite detail of the disdain and mockery The Mothers endured for their ‘memory activist’ work. This chapter contributes a unique empirical analysis of The Mothers and the generational shift from maternal victims to memory activism, highlighting the gendered politics of institutionalizing memory.

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Elna Spasovska’s chapter on women’s peace activism in North Macedonia, like the chapters that come before it demonstrates the function of feminist methodologies in generating rich empirical knowledge on the relationship between maternal agency, violence, and activism. Spasovska’s contribution illustrates the costs and benefits of maternal activism and the risks that accompany conflating femininity with maternity in peace-building spaces. The chapter highlights the material costs and benefits in NGO spaces, where there is a gendered allocation of resources and gendered division of care labour in humanitarian emergencies. Spasovska’s chapter raises interesting questions of how to navigate essentialism with research participants, and the ways that reflexive approaches to research can help us navigate these interactions and how we include them in our analyses. Spasovska’s work reminds me of Deniz Kandiyoti’s ‘patriarchal bargain’ and the myriad of ways both researchers and our participants navigate questions of maternal agency and political participation (see Mhajne & Whetsone, 2020, p. 157 for further discussion). What remains a central thread in this chapter, and the volume, is the fine line many of us walk when it comes to questions of motherhood and the political affordances and limitations that come with it. Themes of gender, care, and agency animate Candice Ortbal’s chapter which explores these discourses in the context of countering violent extremism (CVE). The point of departure for Ortbal’s analysis is the aftermath of a radicalized child taking concrete action, and a mother’s response. Drawing from the literature, Ortbal identifies five responses: the emotional response, the disbelief response, the supportive response, the repudiation response, and the care work response. Ortbal identifies that women or mothers navigate a fine line between the care work, the repudiation, and the supportive response. Ortbal takes these responses, and throughout the analysis weaves a complex and empirically detailed tapestry that is equally compelling as it is troubling. The gendered narratives of care work that Ortbal unravels in this chapter make a unique contribution to how we understand the relationship between violence and care. Continuing with these themes of care and grief, Rita Manchanda’s chapter unravels the gender and power behind the ‘crying mother’ identity. The questions Manchanda opens this chapter with captivated me. These questions revolve around the political possibilities of motherhood as well as the dangers and violence that come with co-option across continuums of militarization and peace. The puzzle Manchanda sets out to piece together in this chapter takes place in the context of India’s northeast in the adjacent states of Nagaland and Manipur, where women face multiple insecurities. The empirical detail contained in this chapter illustrates the ‘power and danger’ (Otto, 2010) of maternal agency and the violent ‘inversion of body politics’ (Manchanda, this volume) when maternal, reproductive bodies become the target and site for violence following patriarchal logics about community, reproduction, and identity. While there is an acceptability and respect attributed to women, organizing, and identifying as mothers, there are also gendered tactics involved in seeking and securing legitimacy and political gains. As Manchanda illustrates in this chapter there are violent limits to what is deemed acceptable and appropriate that intersect with gender, ethnicity, indigeneity, sexuality, and motherhood.

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Trauma, resistance, and mothering are the key themes of Broekhuysen and Al Shaer’s chapter on Palestinian motherhood. This contribution, like several of the chapters that come before it, demonstrates how crucial a feminist research ethics is. Their detailed description and analysis of conversations with grieving Palestinian mothers conveys a deep sense of care for the research participants and honours the stories the mothers share, the grief they express and their resistance to multiple, interlocking levels of patriarchy and colonial oppression. The stories of Palestinian women shared in this chapter illustrate how trauma and resistance are felt and expressed through the body, through food, and through prayer. Broekhuysen and Al Shaer’s chapter reminded me of Lauren Wilcox’s work on pain, gender, and agency. Wilcox writes: Pain can be lived agentically and with and through other people, in ways that cannot be understood thought out frameworks for thinking about the subject as located only within a singular body, or in a framework of Cartesian dualism, but can the basis for responsibility and responsiveness (2015, p. 69).

Not only do we see again the rejection of the Cartesian dualism, but a conceptual avenue to explore pain, bodies, gender, and agency. What Broekhuysen and Al Shaer bring to the surface across the diverse narratives of nationalism and religion and how they intersect with the variety of ways that women resist gendered expectations constructed by and through national discourses of martyrdom and maternal sacrifice. Broekhuysen and Al Shaer convey the stories of Palestinian mothers with great care and sensitivity in this chapter and create space to underline gendered agency, pain, trauma, and love. Ashe and Taylor’s contribution approaches questions of motherhood through the stories of imprisonment and armed combat in the context of Northern Ireland. The interview and archival testimonies are treated with great care to elucidate the complexity of women’s experiences as combatants, and the questions this raises for women and their reproductive choices. Conceptually, this chapter brings questions of gender and conflict to the reproductive, maternal body. The connections to questions of mental and physical health are particularly central in this chapter and illustrate the violent ramifications of incarceration and their impact on the mind and body (again the Cartesian dualism). What I felt on a visceral level when reading this chapter was the maternal anguish that women described with reference to their experiences of being handcuffed during childbirth, being separated from their children and how this compounds and underpins the gendered experience of disarmament and demobilization interventions. This chapter makes an important contribution to research on the gendered nature of incarceration, and its intimate connection to intergenerational trauma. Empirically, through its focus on women’s experiences in prisons and post-prison, this chapter generates unique insights into the ways that imprisonment, gender, and motherhood are entwined and embodied. Khelghat-Doost and Arıboğan’s chapter takes us to the Diyarbakir Province of Turkey and from a political psychology approach explores the mobilization of Kurdish mothers. This case study expands on the literature of women, and

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specifically mother’s involvement in CVE in three important ways. First, it contributes a unique psycho-political lens on the relationship between motherhood and political violence. Second, this chapter identifies the gendered mechanisms by which mothering emerges in public, political practice and transforms both patterns of violent extremism and patriarchal hierarchies. Third, this chapter deepens our conceptual understanding of the gendered public/private dichotomy and how these dynamics are challenged and upended through the political activism of mothers. Alongside the empirical and conceptual advances this chapter makes, KhelghatDoost and Arıboğan also discuss how their findings translate into policy and practice highlighting how taking women, and more specifically mothers, seriously in CVE matters and how this reduces violence, fosters peacebuilding dialogue, and dismantles patriarchal attitudes. This volume makes an important contribution to the rich feminist historiography of gender and motherhood. The chapters you will encounter in this book cover a vast array of how mothers navigate relationships that position women in relation to children, community, nation, and state. What this volume exemplifies is the modes of thinking possible when we take the maternal body seriously, and ask questions of motherhood, agency, and violence. This resonates with Wilcox’s argument for taking bodies seriously in International Relations (IR). Wilcox writes: Taking bodies seriously as political not only serves an explanatory role in thinking about how subjects are constituted and how violent practices are enabled in IR, but also becomes a critical project for opening up space for thinking about politics and resistance in ways previously overlooked (Wilcox, 2015, p. 5).

This book demonstrates that taking maternal bodies seriously creates important intellectual space to examine the types and kinds of violence the discipline of IR takes seriously, and the types and kinds of resistance practised by mothers, but often overlooked (at least by male/mainstream IR). You may notice across these chapters the multiple and overlapping practices and discourses of agency and resistance constructed by and through violence. Thinking through Wilcox’s work in relation to the gendered, maternal body highlights the interrelationship between violent practices, like imprisonment, occupation, and genocide and how they are enabled in IR (Wilcox, 2015, p. 5). My hope with this introductory chapter is to invigorate feminist conversations about care, research practices, positionality, and reflexivity. These are the conversations that have recently provided me with so much joy, intellectual curiosity, and motivation to continue to ask questions about maternal bodies, logics, and practices. The conceptual and empirical contributions this book makes are part of that conversation and what I take with me from my encounters and reflections are (i) violence and agency are relational, gendered, and situated in economies of care and oppression that in turn creates an analytical vantage point to explore gender, and maternal identity in all its complexities and contradictions. And (ii) a feminist-driven rethinking of research methods, ethics and reflexivity is imperative to generate empirical insights that carefully examine the intersections of motherhood, agency, and violence. Being attentive to the ways that power is channelled, diverted, and invested

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in configurations of maternal identity requires attentiveness to the material conditions in which they appear and how these conditions intersect with violence and agency. This makes possible the exploration of the paradoxical nature of the relationship between motherhood, violence, and agency that you will encounter across this book.

References Åhäll, L. (2012a). Motherhood, myth and gendered agency in political violence. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 14(1), 103–120. Åhäll, L. (2012b). The writing of heroines: Motherhood and female agency in political violence. Security Dialogue, 43(4), 287–303. Carreon, M. E., & Moghadam, V. M. (2015, July). “Resistance is fertile”: Revisiting maternalist frames across cases of women’s mobilization. In Women’s Studies International Forum (Vol. 51, pp. 19–30). Pergamon. Cockburn, C. (2001). The gendered dynamics of armed conflict and political violence. In C. N. O. Moser & F. Clark (Eds.), Victims, perpetrators or actors? Gender, armed conflict and political violence. Zed Books. Cohn, C., & Jacobsen, R. (2013). Women and political activism in the face of war and militarization. In C. Cohn (Ed.), Women and wars: Contested histories, uncertain futures. Polity Press. Confortini, C. C., & Wibben, A. T. (2022). Peace. In gender matters in global politics (pp. 314–326). Routledge. Duckett, L. J., & Ruud, M. (2019). Affirming language use when providing health care for and writing about childbearing families who identify as LGBTQI+. Journal of Human Lactation, 35(2), 227–232. Enarson, E. (1998). Through women’s eyes: A gendered research agenda for disaster social science. Disasters, 22(2), 157–173. Enloe, C. (1990). Womenandchildren: Making feminist sense of the persian gulf crisis. The Village Voice, 25(9), 1990. Enloe, C. (2004). The curious feminist: searching for women in a new age of empire. University of California Press. Hankivsky, O. (2014). Rethinking care ethics: On the promise and potential of an intersectional analysis. American Political Science Review, 108(2), 252–264. Hansen, L. (2006). Security as practice: Discourse analysis and the Bosnian War (New ed.). Routledge. Haraway, D. (1988). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575–599. https://doi.org/10.2307/3178066 Hutten, W., & Mustafa, N. (2021). Onderken ook de rol van institutioneel racisme in het migratierecht. Nederlands Juristenblad, 25, 2041–2046. Hyndman, J. (2004). Refugee camps as conflict zones: The politics of gender. In W. Giles & J. Hyndman (Eds.), Sites of violence: Gender and conflict zones (1st ed., p. x+361–x+361). Berkeley: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/j.ctt1ppb4j Jacobs, D. S., Jacobsen, R., & Marchbank, J. (Eds.). (2000). States of conflict: Gender, violence and resistance. Palgrave Macmillan. Kronsell, A. (2005). Gendered practices in institutions of hegemonic masculinity: Reflections from feminist standpoint theory. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 7(2), 280–298. https:// doi.org/10.1080/14616740500065170 Krystalli, R. (2023). Feminist methodology. In Gender matters in global politics (pp.  34–46). Routledge.

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Krystalli, R., & Schulz, P. (2022). Taking love and care seriously: an emergent research agenda for remaking worlds in the wake of violence. International Studies Review, 24(1), viac003. Kurki, M. (2015). Stretching situated knowledge: From standpoint epistemology to cosmology and back again. Millennium, 43(3), 779–797. Loken, M. (2021). ‘Both needed and threatened’: Armed mothers in militant visuals. Security Dialogue, 52(1), 21–44. MacKenzie, M. (2009). Securitization and desecuritization: Female soldiers and the reconstruction of women in post-conflict Sierra Leone. Security Studies, 18(2), 241–261. Mhajne, A., & Whetstone, C. (2018). The use of political motherhood in Egypt’s Arab Spring uprising and aftermath. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 20(1), 54–68. Mhajne, A., & Whetsone, C. (2020). Troubling conceptions of motherhood: State feminism and political agency of women in the global south. In L. B. Hall, A. L. Weissman, & L. J. Shepherd (Eds.), Troubling motherhood: Maternality in global politics. Oxford University Press. O’Reilly, A. (2009). “I envision a future in which maternal thinkers are respected and self-­ respecting”: The legacy of Sara Ruddick’s “maternal thinking”. Women’s Studies Quarterly, 37(3/4), 295–298. Otto, D. (2010). Power and danger: Feminist engagement with international law through the UN Security Council. Australian Feminist Law Journal, 32(1), 97–121. Pateman, C. (2005). Equality, difference, subordination: The politics of motherhood and women’s citizenship. In Beyond equality and difference (pp. 22–35). Routledge. Pettman, J. J. (1996). Worlding women: A feminist international politics. Routledge. Puechguirbal, N. (2004). Women and children: deconstructing a paradigm. Seton Hall J. Dipl. & Int’l Rel., 5, 5. Puechguirbal, N. (2010). Discourses on gender, patriarchy and resolution 1325: A textual analysis of UN documents. International Peacekeeping, 17(2), 172–187. Purnell, K. (2021). Rethinking the body in global politics: Bodies, body politics, and the body politic in a time of pandemic. Routledge. Raghuram, P. (2021). Race and feminist care ethics: Intersectionality as method. In The changing ethos of human rights (pp. 66–92). Edward Elgar Publishing. Robinson, F. (2006). Methods of feminist normative theory: a political ethic of care for international relations. In Feminist methodologies for international relations (pp.  221–240). Cambridge University Press. Robinson, F. (2011). The ethics of care: A feminist approach to human security. Temple University Press. Robinson, F. (2013). Global care ethics: Beyond distribution, beyond justice. Journal of Global Ethics, 9(2), 131–143. Robinson, F., & Confortini, C. C. (2014). Symposium: Maternal thinking for international relations? Papers in honor of Sara Ruddick. Journal of International Political Theory, 10(1), 38–45 Robinson, F. (2018). Care ethics and international relations: Challenging rationalism in global ethics. International Journal of Care and Caring, 2(3), 319–332. Robinson, F. (2020). Resisting hierarchies through relationality in the ethics of care. International Journal of Care and Caring, 4(1), 11–23. Ruddick, S. (1989). Maternal politics: Towards a politics of peace. Boston: Beacon. Shepherd, L. J. (2010). Gender matters in global politics: A feminist introduction to international relations. Routledge. Shepherd, L. J. (2013). Feminist security studies. In L. J. Shepherd (Ed.), Critical approaches to security: An introduction to theories and methods. Routledge. Shepherd, L. J., & Hamilton, C. (2022). Gender matters in global politics: a feminist introduction to international relations (Third edition.; L. J. Shepherd & C. Hamilton, Eds.). Abingdon, Oxon, Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003036432 Shepherd, L. (2016). Research as gendered intervention: feminist research ethics and the self in the research encounter. EN: Critica Contemporánea. Revista de Teoría Política, 6, 1–15. Sjoberg, L., & Ann Tickner, J. (2013). Feminism. In T.  Dunne, M.  Kurki, & S.  Smith (Eds.), Theories of international relations: Discipline and diversity (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.

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Sylvester, C. (2011). The forum: emotion and the feminist IR researcher. International Studies Review, 13(4), 687–708. Taylor, J. K. (2020). Structural racism and maternal health among Black women. Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 48(3), 506–517. Tickner, J. A., & Sjoberg, L. (2011). Feminism and international relations. Conversations about the past, present and future. Routledge. Weissman, A. L., & Hall, L. B. (2019). The global politics of maternality. In Troubling motherhood: Maternality in global politics. Oxford University Press. Wekker, G. (2022). ‘How does one survive the university as a space invader?’: Beyond white innocence in the academy. Dutch Crossing, 46(3), 201–213. Wilcox, L. B. (2015). Bodies of violence: Theorizing embodied subjects in international relations. Oxford University Press. Young, I. M. (2003). The logic of masculinist protection: Reflections on the current security state. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 29(1), 1–25. Yuval-Davis, N. (1997). Gender and nation. Sage. Yuval-Davis, N., & Anthias, F. (1989). Woman–nation–state. Palgrave. Zalewski, M. (1993, July). Feminist standpoint theory meets international relations theory: A feminist version of David and Goliath? The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, 17(2), 13–32. The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Mothers Will Stop at Nothing: The Responses of Mothers of Terrorists Candice D. Ortbals

Abstract  This chapter asks how mothers respond to the terrorist actions of their children. The disparate literature on mothers of terrorists suggests that they might express deep emotions, affirm their children’s actions, or serve as a form of CVE (countering violent extremism) as they assist other mothers who are dissuading their children from radicalization. This chapter draws together the literature to create a framework of possible responses by mothers, and it presents a qualitative content analysis of the responses of 138 mothers whose children were living in the United States and/or were apprehended by the United States while fighting or assisting Islamist extremists. I find that many mothers respond with emotions, but that they largely do not serve as supporters of terrorism nor as activists who further CVE. However, mothers are agentic in their responses to their own individual children as they attempt to maintain contact with them, advocate for them in court, and take care of them during house arrest and/or probation.

Introduction The days grew shorter. Darkness fell earlier. The most everyday things upset her, like seeing the girls’ toothbrushes in the bathroom, finding hair ties under the sofa, going into their room where their shawls lay folded…She had not heard from her daughters since the day they left. (Seierstad, 2019, p. 192)

Seierstad’s narrative, in the book Two Sisters: A Father, His Daughters, and Their Journey into the Syrian Jihad, recounts the true story of parents whose two daughters left Norway to join ISIS in Syria (2019). The book’s title alone – not mentioning the mother  – problematizes the political agency of mothers whose children become terrorists. The book catalogs the adventures of the girls’ father who pursues C. D. Ortbals (*) Abilene Christian University, Abilene, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Ü. Arıboğan, H. Khelghat-Doost (eds.), Constructing Motherhood Identity Against Political Violence, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36538-6_3

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his daughters’ whereabouts, deep into the Syrian war zone; the mother, on the other hand, mourns her children in Norway, weeps frequently, and becomes a shell of a person on account of her loss. This vision of mothers contrasts the popularized perception of some mothers of terrorists who support their children’s violent actions by celebrating and thanking Allah for their jihad (Shalhoub-Kevorkian, 2003; Haq, 2007). Recent scholarship also casts mothers as activists who organize themselves to assist other families dealing with the radicalization of children, and, in turn, become a source of CVE (countering violent extremism) (Brown, 2020; Koehler & Ehrt, 2018). This recent line of research unpacks the discourse of one activist mother who said in an interview, “The mothers are on the front line…There are fathers, too, of course. But mothers will stop at nothing” (Vinocur & Mevel, 2014, n.p.). What do mothers of terrorists do when they “stop at nothing”? This chapter seeks to answer this question by documenting the variety of responses of mothers to their children’s acts of terrorism. The chapter first accomplishes this by aggregating findings from the disparate literatures and presenting a framework of responses of mothers. The chapter then employs qualitative content analysis to document the responses of 138 mothers. Defining who is a “mother of a terrorist” is complex given the numerous definitions of terrorism (Schmid, 2004), the connotation of the terms terrorist and freedom fighter (Finlay, 2009), and the victim–perpetrator cycle, namely the process by which individuals who have been victimized by political violence (or have had family members victimized) become violent perpetrators in response (Argomaniz & Lynch, 2018). For instance, a victimized mother whose child is fighting against what s/he regards as state terrorism might be lauded by a local population as a freedom fighter and yet be regarded by others as a violent terrorist. The mothers investigated in this chapter, women with children who were living in the United States and/or were apprehended by the United States while fighting or assisting Islamist extremists (e.g., the Islamic State or Al Qaeda), have children who might believe they are fighting in the name of victimized communities; and, the mothers themselves, even ones who disavow Islamist extremists, might prefer to think of their children as ordinary kids who have been radicalized. However, from the perspective of the authorities, the children are terrorists participating in violence or assisting an organization that uses violence as a political strategy that harms non-combatant persons, abroad or domestically. This chapter’s use of the terms child and children references the mother-child relationship; terrorists in the data represent a variety of ages – some are young teens but others are adults. This chapter focuses on the actions of mothers after a child has participated in terrorism in some way (e.g., departed or attempted to depart to fight in Syria, committed or attempted a homegrown terrorist attack, provided material support to a  terrorist organization, etc.). I employ an “action-based definition of agency” (Åhäll, 2012, p.  104), meaning that I am primarily interested in what individual mothers do more so than societal discourses about them. I want to gauge the actions they take, for example, to defend their own children and/or assist other mothers facing similar losses. This task, however, includes a secondary discussion of agency as

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“represented through discourse” because the media, the state, and terrorist organizations interpret and frame the actions of mothers (Åhäll, 2012, p. 107). By focusing on how mothers of terrorists respond after their children have conducted terrorist activities, this chapter does not examine the role of mothers in the larger public who are concerned about the possible radicalization of their children or the actions of women terrorists who are themselves mothers. The chapter shows that mothers respond to their children’s terrorist actions with emotion and through care work for those children. Few mothers in this analysis support their children’s terrorist actions outright, yet some believe that their children are not terrorists and/or are not capable of terrorism. Although several mothers contacted the authorities to get help for their children, most, according to the available data, do not directly repudiate their children’s actions. Mothers in the data herein largely do not serve as activists who further counterterrorism, but many perform care work that has political salience and is worthy of policy assistance from the state.

Literature Review Research detailing mothers of terrorists is spread across many academic fields  – criminology, psychology, terrorism studies, and feminist international relations; and, it is lacking in several ways for the purpose of understanding mothers’ responses to their children’s terrorist actions. A prominent theme in the literature regards parents’ – not solely mothers’ – relation to the process of radicalization, and specifically debates whether certain childrearing practices precipitate an extremist mindset in a child and/or whether parents are supportive or merely tolerant of radical attitudes (King et al., 2011; Van San, 2018; Sikkens et al., 2018; Riany et al, 2019). For instance, extremely strict parents or an absent parent might contribute to a child’s journey into deviance. Although such inquiries are relevant to identifying variables precipitating terrorism and reducing them, they do not document how mothers respond to concrete terrorist actions already taken by their children. The literature focused exclusively on mothers of terrorists, like the general literature on parents, largely examines a mother’s role in the time leading up to radicalization. Whereas “bad mothers” do not offer “the proper moral upbringing of children [that resultantly] create[s] radicalized individuals” or, in fact, pass radicalized beliefs on to children; “good mothers” have a penchant for peace and care work (Brown, 2020, p. 119). So-called “bad mothers,” or mothers of martyrs, have long been documented in academic and popular works (see Shalhoub-Kevorkian, 2003; Haq, 2007; Parashar, 2011). According to Brown (2020), the good mothers, like the ones in the organization Mothers for Life, whose children died in the course of fighting for ISIS, are active in counter-radicalization by “warn[ing] other parents” and “imploring other women to be better mothers” (128). Koehler and Ehrt also analyze Mothers for Life. From nine interviews, they conclude that mothers experience intense emotions, fear of the media, potential criminalization of self or other family members, and difficulties navigating bureaucracies (2018). Elhinnawy draws

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from interviews with three mothers of ISIS foreign fighters. These mothers report feeling empowered by their motherhood identity to help other mothers whom the state and society have largely ignored (2021). Policy advocates, as well, tout the role of mothers in CVE and see mothers as a strategic intervention vis-à-vis young men (Ortbals & Poloni-Staudinger, 2018, pp. 152–153). Rather than a focus on a child’s trajectory toward terrorism, this chapter, in the vein of Koehler and Ehrt (2018), identifies what mothers do after a child has been radicalized and has taken concrete terrorist actions. In order to make sense of the disparate literature surrounding mothers of terrorists, I next conceptualize five possible responses by mothers. The responses are rooted in the literature and they are not mutually exclusive. I refer to the responses as the emotional response, the disbelief response, the supportive response, the repudiation response, and the care work response.

Mothers’ Responses The emotional response is self-explanatory, but it is more complex than the archetype of a weeping mother. Mothers of terrorists typically grieve the loss of their children to terrorism; whether or not the child becomes deceased, a mother is likely to feel that her child has been lost to the will of the terrorist organization. As the opening lines of this chapter attest, some women whose children have left to become ISIS fighters cease ordinary life functions due to their emotional unrest. One mother interviewed by Elhinnawy claims that the trauma caused by her son resulted in months of deep depression and an inability to leave her home (2021). Research on Palestinian mothers also reveals the physical toll of loss. Shalhoub-Kevorkian reports that “depression, anxiety, psychosomatic symptoms, and symptoms of Post-­ Traumatic Stress Disorder not only were found to be common amongst Palestinian women, but were also more intense than those experienced by their male counterparts” (2003, p. 391). Palestinian mothers experience sadness and grief, but also anger. One mother recounted wanting her son back so badly that she visits his grave, yells at him, and curses the Palestinian leadership (Shalhoub-Kevorkian, 2003). Maher and Neumann (2016) find that the emotions felt by families of ISIS foreign fighters also run the gamut. Intense pain from sadness is witnessed in a statement by an Australian father of a terrorist: “His mother has not stopped crying since we learnt of this news” (Quoted in Maher & Neumann, 2016, p.  10). Anger, however, is often present among parents when they blame others  – terrorist organizations, radical sheiks, etc. – for the downfall of their children. Grief and displays of emotions can be private or public, and the latter has a good chance of being politicized. According to Osama bin Laden, “mothers, wives and sisters” should both encourage men toward jihad and “mourn for them when they’re gone” (Dickey & Kovach, 2002, n.p.). Emotions become a responsibility for women who are associated with terrorist groups, and, when the group puts the mothers’

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emotions on public display, the group’s ideological goals are glorified (Haq, 2007). This can become an additional source of pain for mothers as they attempt to balance or even withhold (private) sadness and display some (public) happiness for the sake of the terrorist groups’ mission. In doing so, the processing of their private grief becomes frustrated (Shalhoub-Kevorkian, 2003). The disbelief response refers to a lack of belief that a child is a terrorist or has the capacity to be a terrorist. This response is anchored in incipient emotions. In the shock and surprise of learning that a child has participated in terrorism, a grieving mother might be unable to process information about her child and instead expresses denial. This emotional response might be paired with a claim that the child’s character is in fact good. Even after a period of time, however, a sense of disbelief can prevail. Van San discusses two mothers with this response. “​​Latifa, Mohammed’s mother, still cannot understand why her son left…[and] Nora, the mother of Tarik, Adil, and Abdel, says she had no idea why her children left, although she was convinced their intentions were good” (2018, p. 47). The comments of these two mothers substantiate that some mothers will not be able to fully process their children’s actions to the point of understanding how their “good” children participated in “bad” terrorism. A supportive response by a mother is one that approves of the child’s terrorist activities. The literature suggests that the supportive response can be attitudinal, discursive, or action-based. That is, mothers can believe in (or accept) the cause of their children, they can make statements in this regard, and they can act on their beliefs. King et al. suggest that the “family influence [on terrorism] is assumed to stem from a normative support structure, whereby family members hold beliefs and attitudes that may facilitate terrorism” (23). Scheper-Hughes (1996) similarly ties norms to actions by stating “there’s a maternal ethos of ‘acceptable death’ without which political violence and wars of all kinds would not be possible” (356). In this way, mothers can “nurse” their children “on the mother’s milk of hatred and bitterness” (Post, 2010, p. 18), and they can uphold a “culture of martyrdom” (Bianchi, 2018, p.  20). This chapter examines mothers’ responses after a radicalized child takes terrorist actions, and one could extrapolate that mothers continue to offer normative support over time. This appeared to be the case with the mother of Leila Khaled, a Palestinian terrorist interviewed by Caron Gentry. Gentry explains that Khaled, described her [mother] as proud of Khaled and her siblings for defending the cause of Palestinian nationalism…When they joined the struggle, her mother “couldn’t contradict herself [even though] as a mother she was afraid. At the same time . . . she came to me and . . . said, ‘do not be afraid, we are all with you.’ So she was supportive [the whole time]. (Gentry, 2011)

Beyond an accepting “ethos,” mothers are known to show their support by speaking about their martyred children to the media or local communities. At the bequest of the Lashkar-i-Tayyabia terrorist organization in Pakistan, mothers of martyred sons speak at an annual convention and when doing so they must carefully balance

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mournful emotions with a celebration of a “son’s fine achievements” (Haq, 2007, p.  1039). The mothers become “walking billboards for a jihadi mission” (Haq, 2007, p. 1033). Palestinian mothers provide a similar example when they support terrorism through testimony in the media. For instance, Umm Nidal, a Palestinian mother whose six sons were jihadists, gave a media interview in 2002, in which she stated, “Because I love my son, I encouraged him to die a martyr’s death for the sake of Allah… Jihad is a religious obligation incumbent upon us, and we must carry it out” (Mermi, 2002; see also Cragin & Daly, 2009). According to Haq (2007), the mothers’ discursive support in Pakistan – through testimonies and LT publications – is suspect given that many other mothers, grandmothers, and sisters do not readily embrace their relatives’ martyrdom and most mothers “cannot read or write” (Haq, 2007, p. 1043). Rather, the terrorist organization embellishes on some women’s words of support as a way to propagate the normative framework that encourages terrorist recruitment. The supportive response therefore always must be considered with an awareness that the media and terrorist organizations use mothers’ words strategically. The literature also suggests mothers’ concrete actions in support of terrorist causes. According to Sjöberg (2013), wives and mothers of terrorists may play a logistics role. Von Knop’s analysis of terrorist websites shows that websites provide “advice on how mothers, wives, and sisters of Jihadi fighters should be supportive of their husbands’ decision to become a Shahid and how they should provide food, shelter, and care for all Shahids” (2007, p. 408). The repudiation response is opposite of the supportive response; it occurs when a mother disavows the actions of her child. Van San’s analysis of parents of ISIS foreign fighters cast doubt on the supportive response; she finds that “all the parents [in her study] are, without any exception, against the participation of their children in the armed struggle” (Van San, 2018, p. 45). Similarly, Jørgensen (2022), in studying the testimonies of jihadists’ relatives, explains one mother’s frank response regarding her son. This mother states that she “does not ‘deny’ her son’s responsibility… ‘I don’t justify anything regarding my son. I also think he’s been an idiot’” (11). Therefore, it might be the case that mothers acknowledge their children’s wrongdoing and speak out about it. The care work response is predicated on the life-giving and peaceful mother ideal that is commonly debated in international relations (Ruddick, 1995; Gentry, 2009; Åhäll, 2012). That is, women “as part of their biological function as mothers,” are assumed to be agentic for peace rather than being a source of violence (Gentry, 2009, p.  247). Although international relations scholars recognize that this ideal essentializes women’s agency (Gentry, 2009), it continues to show up in the CVE literature. I define the care work response as one in which mothers conduct actions for the sake of protecting their own children and/or the children of the broader social community. As with the emotional response, the care work response has a private and public face. Privately, at the individual level, a mother could care for her own child engaged in terrorism, for example, by getting her/him help from public actors engaged in

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CVE, offering material support for her/his survival during travel abroad, and/or paying for her/his legal costs. Koehler and Ehrt demonstrate care responses even after a child is deceased (2018). Mothers want to have access to “the deceased children’s files at police, intelligence, school, social services or other institutions” in order to heal and to settle remaining obligations related to the child (e.g., closing his/her bank account) (186). This cannot be done without a death certificate, which requires mothers to navigate state bureaucracies, and this is especially difficult when no bodily remains or evidence of death exists (2018). These same mothers also are often caring for their other children whom they want to protect against radicalization and/or negative encounters with the authorities (Koehler & Ehrt, 2018). Because care work itself does not presume normative support for terrorism or a lack thereof, a fine line exists between the care work response, the repudiation response, and the supportive response. A mother, for example, might renounce her child’s terrorist activities and at the same time support them in court. Moreover, providing resources to foreign fighters presents a conundrum. One woman in Elhinnawy’s study states, “sending money to our children is the only way to ensure contact with them, in hopes that one day we may convince them to return” (2021, p. 101). However, this form of caregiving can lead to convictions of the mother or other family members if it is seen as “aiding and financing terrorism” (Elhinnawy, 2021, p. 101). The recent literature is apt to recount the public face of care work. According to Brown (2020), mothers of terrorists have “normative power in the public sphere” to help save children in their communities by becoming a resource for other mothers. Mothers for Life, for example, dispatches “specially trained members of the network” to contact and advise families with “active” cases of radicalization (Koehler & Ehrt, 2018, p. 187). Mothers for Life also propagates counter-narratives against violent Islamism, and, they do by stressing Islamic beliefs about obedience to mothers (Brown, 2020).

Method Empirical data can be evaluated vis-a-vis the above conceptualization of mothers’ responses. Considering that studies of mothers thus far have drawn from few interviews with mothers and typically only look at one or two of the five responses, this chapter seeks to gauge a variety of responses from many mothers. Interviewing a large number of mothers, however, is infeasible because mothers often avoid the public spotlight and media and interviews can become a source of re-traumatization for them (Personal Communication, 2022). For these reasons, I study mothers of terrorists through publicly available media, government documents, and secondary sources. Based on websites that include the names of terrorists indicted in the United States and terrorists who have sought to leave the United States to be ISIS foreign fighters, from 2010 to the present, I conducted a web-based search of the terrorists’

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names and the search term “mother.”1 I then conducted additional searches for traditional news media from the Dow Jones Factiva database. The unit of analysis is the mother herself, with the total number of cases of mothers who respond in some way at 138. Given that the data focus on terrorists from or tried by the United States, it contains fewer mothers of deceased ISIS foreign fighters than would be the case in research about a European country from which many more foreign fighters originated. The data, therefore, is weighted toward mothers whose children are alive and facing trials, some of whom left (or attempted to leave) as a fighter but were apprehended. Qualitative content analysis is a flexible approach that allows researchers to utilize inductive and deductive logic as they pass through the data multiple times. I want to know if the mothers respond in the five ways indicated by the literature, i.e., if mothers’ actions can be categorized in terms of emotions, disbelief, support, repudiation, and care work. Because I also want to identify additional types of responses not foretold by the literature, I conduct a “directed approach” to content analysis that “starts with a theory or relevant research findings as guidance for initial codes” (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005, p. 1277) but is interested in data that “represent a new category or a subcategory of an existing code” (1282). Table 1 lists the five responses as categories in addition to five inductively identified categories. I discuss the findings in narrative form and list category frequencies in tabular form (see Table 1). Table 1  Categories of responses from mothers (frequency) Deductive categories Emotional response (includes sadness, worry, anger, shock, tenseness, crying, weeping, sobbing, and physical decline) Disbelief response (includes initial disbelief and bewilderment and continued denial of child’s participation in terrorism or capacity to be a terrorist) Supportive response (includes hiding evidence from authorities, sharing fundamentalist ideas with child, and terrorist family connection) Repudiation response (includes repudiation of the actions of child, repudiation of the terrorist organization, and repudiation/debate of extremist interpretations of Islam) Care Work response (includes individual-level care work for child or grandchild and interest in camaraderie with other mothers) Inductive categories Reporting child to authorities and/or cooperating with them Complimenting child’s character Concern for child’s mental or physical health Facing violence from child Choosing not to respond (includes refusing to make a statement and sequestering in one’s home)

Frequency (out of 138) 61 43 7 15

82

21 32 14 11 30

 Terrorist names came from (a) the website “Trial and Terror” (The Intercept, 2022), (b) list of major terrorist attacks in the United States, and (c) Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens et al. (2018). 1

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Frequencies point to the most common responses as reported in data sources rather than the precise number of mothers who made the response.

Responses by Mothers of Terrorists in the United States The data show that mothers’ responses are primarily emotional and are related to individual-level care work. The emotions reported by the media and by the mothers themselves are ones of grief and sadness and they are displayed by crying. For instance, Ayan Abdurahman, the mother of a son who attempted to join ISIS, “held back tears as she spoke to reporters” after her son’s court hearing. She simply stated, “I’m feeling very sad…I’m a mother” (Ibrahim, 2015). Given that the data are weighted to mothers with children who are on trial or expected to be, a typical scenario consists of a mother attending her child’s trial and crying during the child’s testimony, when the verdict is read, or while entering or leaving the courthouse. The mother of Adam Dandach, who was apprehended while attempting to travel to Syria, serves as an additional example. According to the media, “Dandach’s mother had hidden his passport to stop him from traveling” and she “sobbed in the courtroom during the hearing” (Emery, 2016). Her care work as a mother thus took place when she tried to halt his terrorist activity and when she supported him in the court process. Mothers also respond with emotions upon hearing of their child’s arrest, departure, and/or death. When Ltefaji Hoxha, the mother of Zulfie Hoxha, learned that her son had become an ISIS fighter, she stated “I am upset. No good. I’m very upset” (Greenberg & McCrone, 2018). Martha Georgelas, the mother of John Georgelas, who is known for being “the Islamic State’s leading producer of highend English-language propaganda” and who died in 2017 (Wood, 2016), stated that she and her husband were “devastated by John’s actions” (Davies, 2017). As her husband explained, Martha “has taken longer [than he has] to come to terms with the loss of their son” (Davies, 2017). Emotions such as worry and anger are also present in the data. Mothers are worried when they cannot find a child who has recently traveled abroad to join ISIS. The mother of Mustafa Ali Salat searched for him in various places, including at local hospitals, and she later talked to his friends. They told her that “Mustafa had been seen at the airport,” and though at first she “thought it was all a joke,” when she tried to call his phone and it was out of the local service area, “she got real worried something was wrong” (Meyhew, 2011). Anger is present in the case of Antonio Martinez who was charged after being caught in an FBI sting. His mother tried to convince him not to convert to Islam, and “she said she was angered by his alleged actions” (Nuckuls & Dominguez, 2010). Media framing of mothers’ emotions is also of note. Though media mostly described crying mothers in a matter of fact way, a handful of dramatic media framings were found. Table 2 lists three mothers, one described as having a “trembling lip” and the other two dramatized with respect to their head coverings.

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Table 2  Examples of media framing of mothers’ emotions Terrorist name Ariel Bradley

Azamat Tazhayakov

Ibraheem Musaibli

Terrorist action ISIS foreign fighter, likely died in airstrike in 2018

Description of mother “With an anxious scan of the front yard, lip trembling, Dianne Bradley said her daughter told her family last year that she had traveled to the Middle East with her husband….” (Hall, 2015) Obstructed a terrorism “But as that jury filed in Monday afternoon, Ismagoulov investigation by hiding [Azamat’s father] betrayed anything but confidence. His evidence related to the wife, Tuyrsynai [Azamat’s mother], showed even less. Boston Marathon She grabbed their 2-year-old daughter, Almira, put her bomber, Dzhokhar on her lap, then covered Almira with a brightly covered Tsarnaev scarf, as if to shield her from what was about to happen. Then she rocked Almira, the same way she used to rock Azamat” (Cullen, 2014) ISIS foreign fighter, “Ibraheem’s Musaibli’s mother, Afrah Musaibli, and detained in Syria and sister, Fatima Musaibli, attended the hearing Wednesday transferred to the in white scarves – a color traditionally reserved for United States for a trial funerals and somber occasions – and tears seeing him for the first time in three years” (Snell & Rahal, 2018)

Care work responses take several forms, but were aimed at the mothers’ own children rather than those of the broader community. Mothers care for their children by maintaining communication with them, assisting them as they await trial, and contributing to the trial itself. The mothers with children awaiting trial communicate by visiting their children in custody, calling them in prison, and/or sending them letters; whereas mothers with children who are foreign fighters attempt to stay in contact by way of cell phones and/or social media. The latter urge their children to come home and at least one did so by invoking motherhood identity. Asher Abid Khan traveled to Turkey but had not yet joined ISIS in Syria, when his “parents tricked him into returning to Houston by claiming his mother was in the intensive care unit of a hospital” (SBS News, 2015). It is not uncommon for a mother of a foreign fighter to first hear of her child’s death from another fighter who has contacted her through the child’s cell phone. Care work lingers on for mothers whose children face trials. Assistance leading up to the trial can come in the form of material resources for lawyers and/or bail and in the form of assistance during home arrest. A mother might ask a judge to release her child to her with electronic monitoring while the child awaits trial. The judge might reject this request, especially in the case of a would-be foreign fighter who is a flight risk (Ove, 2019). However, the case of Alexander Blair, who was charged and convicted of lending money to fund a failed bomb plot, proves otherwise. Blair’s mother “told the judge her son hadn’t been a problem in their home,” and he was permitted to reside at his parent’s home while he awaited trial. (United States of America v. Blair, 2015). This type of care work becomes relevant again if the child requires probation after a prison sentence. Abdirizak Mohamed Warsame, after being convicted and serving two and a half years in prison for conspiring to join ISIS, was released in 2019 to serve probation while residing with his mother, Deqa

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Hussein. As she explains, she has since reminded him to “just follow the rules, don’t mess up your probation status. Follow the rules” (Allam, 2019). Mothers also participate in court proceedings. As caregivers who closely know the children, they testify and/or write letters to judges to attest to their children’s character. For example, Marchello McCain’s mother wrote a letter to a judge, in which she described her son “as sweet, hardworking, caring and ‘not the monster the news say he is’” (Davis, 2018). This sort of complimentary discourse is a key inductive finding in the data. As Table 3 shows, mothers use compliments to frame their children as typical, good kids who are radicalized into contemptible activities. The complimentary response makes sense for couple of reasons. First, a mother attesting to her child’s character in the trial context is motivated to show that her child is good and capable of change in hopes of the child receiving a lesser sentence. Second, some mothers who compliment their children appear to be speaking from a sense of disbelief. Mothers might genuinely believe that their child is not a terrorist and is indeed a good person. For example, the authorities believe that Ibraheem Musaibli, who was rescued in Syria, was an ISIS foreign fighter. His family and his defense lawyer, however, have argued that he was merely “a civilian living under ISIS rule” and that he got trapped there while traveling (Snell, 2021). Thus, his mother truly believes he is not a terrorist when she states, “He’s the best son a mother could ask for…He contacted me from Syria and desperately needed help getting out” (Snell & Rahal, 2018). Another finding related to the disbelief response is a mother’s critique of government authorities. Some children discussed in the data face trials following an FBI sting operation, in which the child has agreed to terrorist activities after communication with an FBI informant. Mothers of children caught in a sting operation may believe that Table 3  Examples of complimenting child’s character Name Abdirizak Mohamed Warsame Adnan El Shukrijumah

Mother’s compliment “Abdirizak was a beautiful man. He was a peaceful man… he used advice [sic] the youth in the community to stay away from drugs…He was a role model for other youth” (Mahamud, 2016) “‘It’s not true,’ his mother, Zurah Adbu Ahmed, told the Sun Sentinel on Friday when told of the FBI’s latest findings. She paused. ‘I don’t know. But I don’t think it’s true. He’s a kind, loving, caring boy’” (Hurrahs, 2010) Alexander “Ciccolo’s mother, Shelley MacInnes, told New England Public Radio last Ciccolo year that her son is ‘very compassionate’ and ‘would not hurt a fly’” (Associated Press, 2018) Amir Said “He’s a wonderful son and a good father, a very nice person” (Cleveland 19, Rahman Al-Ghazi 2015) Everitt Aaron “‘He’s a wonderful boy and a wonderful human being that’s being railroaded Jameson I think’ said Kelly Collins [his mother]” (Luca, 2017) Nader Elhuzayel “My son is a very good kid. He never would be a terrorist, because I know my kids are all good kids” (KABC, 2016) Sean Andrew “'Sean is a very good kid. Sean is a very honest and sincere child, and that’s Duncan all I can say, is that he’s a child,’ his mother said after his arrest” (The Washington Post, 2018)

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their child would not have chosen a pathway to terrorism had he/she  not been recruited by the FBI; thus, they do not believe that the child is actually a terrorist. A particularly complex version of this scenario pertains to the story of Erick Jamal Hendricks. His mother knew he was in contact with the FBI and believed that he was helping the FBI as an informant, but, instead, the FBI was recruiting him and later he was charged with recruiting for ISIS. A final scenario of disbelief includes a mother who believes her child is not mentally competent enough to choose to engage in terrorism. Abdulrahman El Bahnasawy, a Canadian who was charged and convicted for planning an ISIS attack in New York City, struggled with mental illness according to his mother, Khadiga Metwally. Metwally argued, “My son was arrested by all unfair reasons… [he was] manipulated by FBI with the help of the… RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police]…They manipulated him by ‘hyper’ talking while he was manic and wasn’t under treatment” (Hunter, 2019). More disbelief responses were evident in the data than were repudiation responses. Moreover, when mothers strongly speak out against terrorism, they are not directly pointing to their children’s culpability but rather to the transgressions of a terrorist organization. The most striking repudiation in the data came from Zarine Khan, mother of Mohammed Hamzah Khan. She “delivered a tearful but stern message accusing Islamic State recruiters of ‘the brainwashing and recruiting of children through the use of social media’” (Martinez & Howell, 2015). Khan continued by saying, “We condemn this violence in the strongest possible terms…We have a message for ISIS, Mr. Baghdadi and his fellow social media recruiters: Leave our children alone!” (Martinez & Howell, 2015). Other mothers do not directly repudiate their child’s actions or those of terrorist organizations but express disagreement with extremist Islam that promotes violent jihad. Mothers often cooperate with authorities even if they do not directly repudiate their children. They do so in order to help their children, in hopes, for example, that a child can be blocked from traveling to Syria. However, this caring and protective response can be a double-edged sword. When the authorities respond to a mother’s request for help, they are likely to hold the child responsible for terrorist actions he/ she has already committed, as happened in the case of Ali Shukri Amin. Amin promoted ISIS online and recruited for the group through social media, which resulted in him being charged with providing material support to terrorists. He himself had not left for Syria even though he helped others to travel. In a letter to the judge in her son’s case, Ali’s mother, Amani Ibrahim, explained that “while we are glad that Ali did not go abroad, we also feel very confused. The fact that we reached out to the authorities is the only light in this tragedy…but it is a light that burns too” (Richey, 2015). The data did not indicate that mothers tend to be supportive of their child’s terrorist actions. I found one mother who was a contributor to a terrorist plot, another mother who had sourced recording of Anwar al-Awlaki sermons to her child, and another who was raising money for terrorist activities. Zubeidat Tsarnaeva and Rafia Farook are perhaps the most newsworthy mothers of terrorists who were themselves perceived to be in support of terrorism. Tsarnaeva, the mother of the

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Boston Marathon bombers, is herself a fundamentalist who has extreme views, had been watched by the FBI, and who spoke caustically about the United States while defending her sons. Rafia Farook is the mother of Syed Rizwan Farook, who along with his wife, shot 17 people in San Bernadino, California in 2015. After the attack, Rafia Farook shredded a document that detailed her son’s attack plans. She was convicted of destroying evidence, and her action made many wonder if she knew of the attack beforehand. However, the judge in her case only ordered her to serve house arrest and explained that “we must keep in mind that it was her son, and maybe she acted instinctively to protect him” (Rokos, 2021). This explanation, however, did not satisfy the victims’ families. An aunt of one victim shouted at Farook: “I hope you live with your guilt the rest of your life. You’re a terrible mother!” (Rokos, 2021). Another rare occurrence in the data is a caregiving response to children other than one’s own. Recall, this response has received international attention because some mothers – like those in Mothers for Life – have become activists who help other radicalized children. I identified a mother and a father who spoke about radicalization at a conference organized by the authorities, a mother who attended a conference of Muslim Americans to network with other families influenced by terrorism, and a couple of other mothers who expressed an ambiguous sense of camaraderie with other mothers. The mother of Craig Benedict Baxam, when asked if she had a message for other mothers, said, “I’d say: ‘You are not alone. What has happened to you is beyond your imagination. But you are not alone’” (Pilkington, 2016). One can conclude, therefore, that some mothers recognize the shared connections between mothers even if the connection does not translate into ongoing and effective activism. However, many other mothers refuse to speak publicly about their children’s actions and thus do not seem open to public roles (see Table 1). Two additional inductive findings complete the discussion of the data. First, as alluded to above, the data contain statements from mothers about their children’s mental or physical health. Mothers report children who struggle with addiction, depression, Asperger’s syndrome, low IQ, PTSD following military service, and psychological pain from past experiences of political violence. Some mothers are motivated to discuss these struggles as a justification to reduce their child’s legal penalties, and others demonstrate genuine frustration about not having been able to find adequate healthcare solutions for their child before he/ she accomplished terrorist actions. Second, a small number of mothers themselves face violence from their children. One terrorist in the data threatened to behead his mother and another expressed the desire to kill his mother when she discovered some of the weaponry he had ordered to use in an attack. Another mother needed to secure a restraining order against her son. These examples are noteworthy given that mothers involved in CVE activism often contend that invoking the importance motherhood in Islam and the mother-child relationship may dissuade a radicalizing individual from adopting terrorism. In the cases here, however, the child sees violence against his own mother as a necessary means to achieving his terrorist goals.

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Conclusion The international community wants to know if ordinary mothers, following their children’s terrorist actions, choose political agency related to CVE and if such agency serves as a strategic intervention to slow the radicalization of young people and to stop future terrorist actions. This chapter, however, shows that mothers do not typically offer collective caregiving responses in the form of organized and sustained activism. Though it is possible that data from a country other than the United States might elicit more examples of collective care work, it is also plausible that many mothers simply do not choose political agency associated with CVE. Moreover, the prospect of one’s child dying or going to prison prompts a predictable emotional response in mothers. In the remainder of this chapter, I address whether these findings amount to an admission that mothers of terrorists are mere “crying mothers” without political agency. Do mothers “stop at nothing” to respond to the terrorist actions of their children or do they become a shell of a person on account of their loss? I conclude that mothers’ lives have been emotionally upended by their children’s terrorist activities, but that some of them do respond in action-oriented ways. When they do act, they are likely to “stop at nothing” in an effort to provide care for their own children. The care work of mothers in this chapter is political because it has the potential to stop terrorist activities from taking place and because the care work benefits the state and/or demands a greater policy response. Although this study focuses on mothers’ responses after a child participates in terrorism rather than during the radicalization process, it should be noted that children can become more greatly radicalized as they begin to commit terrorist offenses. A child, for instance, can promote a terrorist group on social media as they become more entrenched in the group’s goals and they later might go on to plan an attack or leave to become a foreign fighter. Mothers’ care work responses influence children during this time, on the front end of greater terrorist activity. This was seen in cases in which mothers sought mental or physical healthcare for their children or when mothers turned to the authorities because they feared what their children might do. After a child has served a prison sentence, a mothers’ caregiving during probation is equally important and certainly political. Some terrorists in the United States who were imprisoned in the 2010s for lesser infractions (social media actions rather than extreme terrorist attacks) have served short sentences and have returned or are returning to their local communities. Authorities are concerned about recidivism amongst them and some experts argue that “family therapy” is an important part of the de-­ radicalization process for these individuals (Walters, 2018). Therefore, mothers stand to be influential in ensuring that their previously convicted children do not continue with terrorist activities. The scope of this study could not gauge if fathers take similar actions to care for their children; however, I argue that mothers are especially consequential in certain circumstances. For example, Somali refugee families often are led by single mothers if the family has been resettled without the father or other family members or if the father died in the civil war. Mothers of young Somalis from Minneapolis who were convicted terrorists

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might be primarily responsible for caregiving in the process of their children’s return to society. Keeping in mind that mothers may face community backlash and disdain because of their child’s actions, these mothers may become tasked with a unique form of caregiving within a non-supportive context. Daniel Koehler, an expert on deradicalization, suggests the need for social services for families, which might include legal advice, counseling, mediation with state institutions and security agencies; and, he reports likewise public services in Germany (2014). The data herein suggest that mothers of terrorists in the United States are also in need of policy assistance from the United States as they interact with their children and help them to rehabilitate. A final piece to the story told by these data relates to how other actors portray the agency of mothers. The findings point to the occasional construction of motherhood that either emphasizes women’s emotional fragility or women’s failure to adequately mother a child who chooses terrorist actions. The framing of mothers’ emotions, included in Table  2, dramatized two mothers who were wearing headscarves at courthouses, with one supposedly using a headscarf to shield her young child from hearing bad news and the other supposedly symbolizing the pain of death by wearing a scarf color that is typically reserved for funerals. Considering that no similar details about the clothing choices of fathers were found in the data, I argue that these media descriptions do not convey newsworthy details about the children’s trials but instead portray mothers as weak, overly emotional, and curiously religious with the potential to support terrorism. Furthermore, the data evidenced the construction of women as bad mothers who have not been properly agentic in their children’s lives. Mothers are to be judged as “bad” regardless of the actions they choose. If a mother cooperates with the authorities, she may be critiqued by her community for doing so, as was the case with Deqa Hussein. She defended her son when he worked with authorities in order to get a plea deal, and that deal subsequently led to harsher convictions for his friends whose families live in the same community. Mothers also feel like they “can’t win” when they want to interface with the authorities to get help for their children but their requests for help lead to a child’s imprisonment. Alternatively, not cooperating with authorities or critiquing their use of sting operations makes a mother appear to be bad and acquiescent to terrorism. Thus some mothers are being judged as bad mothers and dismissed as emotional rather than being understood as agentic when in fact many are responding to their children in ways that influence terrorism outcomes.

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Grieving Mothers Who Nurture Sustainable Peace and Women’s Political Agency in Argentina Crystal Whetstone

Abstract  Political violence in Argentina has shifted from direct, albeit sometimes veiled, state action during the military dictatorship that ended in 1983 to today’s combination of open direct action, inaction and covert action by the state. This chapter examines the collective agency of women’s groups mobilized through maternal grief against political violence, asking: How does motherhood activism contribute to sustainable, full peace in an Argentina marked by evolving forms of political violence? By tracing empowered constructions of motherhood through three cases – Madres de Plaza de Mayo (Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo), Madres contra el Paco (Mothers against Paco) and Mamà Cultiva Argentina (Mom Cultivates Argentina)  – this chapter demonstrates that women’s political agency enacted through motherhood activism contributes to sustainable peace through the pursuit of accountability as well as economic and political equality, and adapts to varying deployments of political violence. The results of this motherhood activism have bolstered human rights, social justice and democracy in Argentina. The implications of these findings point to progressive and emancipatory potentials through motherhood for both women’s political agency and sustainable peacebuilding in various political environments including, authoritarian, transitioning and (deficiently) democratic.

Introduction Political violence in Argentina has shifted from direct, albeit sometimes veiled, state action during the military dictatorship that ended in 1983 to today’s combination of open direct action, inaction and covert action by the state. This chapter examines the collective agency of women’s groups mobilized through maternal grief against C. Whetstone (*) Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Ü. Arıboğan, H. Khelghat-Doost (eds.), Constructing Motherhood Identity Against Political Violence, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36538-6_4

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political violence. Motherhood activism is one aspect of political motherhood, a form of women’s engagement in politics by which women rely on their identities as mothers to access the public political sphere (Mhajne & Whetstone, 2020). Political motherhood links with Deniz Kandiyoti’s (1988) construction of “bargaining with patriarchy” in which women support patriarchal values to advance their own positions. However, women subvert some aspects of patriarchy through political motherhood and may ultimately break out of “traditional” roles (Kaplan, 1982). One of the strongest cases for the progressive and emancipatory potentials of political motherhood is Argentina’s Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, a motherhood activist group organizing since 1977, and which has evolved from addressing strictly issues of their children’s well-being to broader issues of democratic and economic equality (Bouvard, 1994). Argentina is a flawed democracy (like so many today) that began as part of Spain’s colonial empire in the Americas. Following independence in 1810, the state slowly consolidated through strongman violence, followed by slow-paced democracy-building. Afro-Argentines and Indigenous Argentines endured state violence to reduce their populations over the first 100 years of independence. Only in 1911 was all-male suffrage and the secret ballot introduced. Even this limited democratizing was soon hindered by the military, which in 1915 asserted its right to interfere in elections to ensure “stability.” Following various military interferences into government, in 1976, as part of Operation Condor, a spate of US-backed military dictatorships in Latin America that caused widespread political violence, the military ruled directly until 1983, when Argentina began transitioning to democracy (Hybel, 2019). Neoliberalism was introduced under the military dictatorship but strengthened in the 1990s under democratic rule. However, the economic crash of 2001–2002 led to considerable protests against the growing economic inequality and poverty wrought by neoliberal policies (Taylor, 1997; Sutton, 2010). Although the economy recovered by 2010, corruption in the government is a problem (Hybel, 2019). Further, the state fails to treat all Argentines the same, with the economically disadvantaged subject to considerable state violence, often through state neglect or covert state action (Auyero & Berti, 2015). This chapter asks: How does motherhood activism contribute to sustainable, full peace in an Argentina marked by evolving forms of political violence? By tracing empowered constructions of motherhood through three cases – Madres de Plaza de Mayo (Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo), Mujeres por la Vida (Women for Life) better known as Madres contra el Paco (Mothers against Paco) and Mamà Cultiva Argentina (Mom Cultivates Argentina)  – this chapter demonstrates that women’s political agency enacted through motherhood activism contributes to sustainable peace efforts through the pursuit of accountability as well as economic and political equality, and adapts to varying deployments of political violence. Sustainable peace here begins with the United Nations’ (UN) definition that takes a holistic and inclusive approach to peace that seeks not only the end of armed conflict but preventing future armed conflict (UN, 2015, pp.  12–13). However, the chapter additionally takes feminist international relations (IR) insights into account, seeking to move beyond the mere absence of armed conflict to ensure full peace, which

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requires justice on political, economic and social grounds (Alexander, 2019). Motherhood activism has bolstered human rights, social justice and democracy in Argentina. The implications of these findings point to progressive and emancipatory potentials through political motherhood for both women’s political agency and sustainable peacebuilding in various political environments including, authoritarian, transitioning and democratic. The chapter proceeds as follows. First, the rationale for this project is addressed, followed by a literature review that overviews women’s political participation in Argentina in three periods: the military dictatorship, the transition to democracy and the current deficiently democratic period. The third section examines three cases of motherhood activism: Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Mothers against Paco and Mom Cultivates Argentina. The discussion elaborates on the implications of motherhood activism on sustainable and full peace in Argentina before turning to the conclusion, which summarizes the main takeaways that (1) political motherhood can be empowering politically for women and (2) that mother activists have bolstered the prospects for full peace in Argentina.

The Rationale This chapter follows a critical feminist methodology, which emphasizes embedded power structures and hierarchical relationships with the intention of undermining, resisting and disrupting the dynamics that prevent justice (Ackerly & True, 2010). Argentina presents a theoretically interesting case to understand how motherhood activism shifts according to context. The authoritarian regime of Argentina’s Cold War military dictatorship enacted widespread human rights violations, with up to 30,000 undergoing enforced disappearance, a crime against humanity that seeks to remove political opponents by literally “disappearing” them, and the banning of political freedoms on the pretense of saving “Western civilization” by preventing Soviet infiltration of Argentina (Navarro, 2001; Sutton, 2010). Argentina has since returned to democracy, a slow transition that has not been without its bumps, most notably the twin 2001–2002 economic and political crises, which mobilized the population against the state’s failures, and ongoing issues around state corruption (Hybel, 2019). Moving across these different eras of authoritarian and democratic regimes indicates that state violence has been ongoing, although it has taken shifting forms. The state has moved from direct, although often veiled, violence associated with the military dictatorship – most notably with enforced disappearances – to state violence that takes shape as direct, covert or inactive violence, with the state slashing social services to promote economic growth (Sutton, 2010) and police shooting and asking questions later (direct violences) (Glanc, 2014). It also includes the police demanding bribes to do their jobs (covert violences), or when the state lets poor neighborhoods go to waste through the failure to regularly collect and remove trash or help endangered citizens (inactive violences) (Auyero & Berti, 2015). The Mothers of

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the Plaza de Mayo is a classic case of political motherhood and one of the most well-known of many mothers of the disappeared who arose in Latin America in the context of the Cold War. In the years since the transition to democracy, the group (which separated into two branches in 1986) has continued its activism, now focusing on remembering the terrors of the military dictatorship and promoting democracy and economic redistribution (Bouvard, 1994; Sutton, 2010; Bevernage, 2012). Other motherhood activist groups have arisen since the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo’s mobilization, including Mothers against Paco, active since 2003, whose members understand the power and the resonance of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo and have sought to emulate this strategy (Auyero & Berti, 2015). Similarly, Mom Cultivates Argentina, founded in 2016 as part of a transnational movement with chapters in several countries in the region, builds on the organizing of mothers of the disappeared groups that existed (and still exist) in parts of the region. While many feminists in the 1980s and 1990s were concerned that the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo were politically naïve and/or “trapped in maternal scripts” that confined them to particular issues (Feijoo, 1994; Taylor, 1997), in the decades since, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo have demonstrated their ability to evolve politically, active now for 45 years. While it remains to be seen whether Mothers against Paco and Mom Cultivates Argentina will be involved in their motherhood activism for another 20+ and almost 40  years respectively, already the contributions of these newer maternal groups are having an impact on peace in Argentina. The chapter turns now to outlining the context of Argentine women’s political participation in different political periods.

Women’s Political Participation in Argentina This section overviews women’s political participation in Argentina in three roughly divided eras: first, the military dictatorship of 1976–1983, second, Argentina’s transition to democracy from the military dictatorship until the 2001–2002 crisis and the third, the aftermath of the crisis to present. According to Freedom House (2022), today Argentina is “a vibrant representative democracy” that features free and fair elections and has an active civil society and robust public debate, although corruption remains a concern (Hybel, 2019). Unsurprisingly, women’s political participation has grown under recent democratic governments compared to the military dictatorship, which banned political activity (Taylor, 1997; Cosgrove, 2010).

The Military Dictatorship (1976–1983) Cold War-era Latin America endured US-supported military dictatorships across much of the region linked to the “cold” US-USSR rivalry that bred “hot” conflicts globally. Latin America’s military dictatorships enacted so-called “dirty wars” in

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which state representatives tortured and killed citizens, often through enforced disappearances. In Argentina, this era is known as the period of state terrorism given the extensive state human rights abuses (Sutton, 2010). Argentina’s junta – a junta being a military government  – overthrew a democratic government in 1976 and rolled back political freedoms, justifying the coup d’état on the need to protect Christianity and capitalism from communism. The regime deemed any left-leaning or social justice-oriented groups or individuals to be in collusion with the Soviet Union, marking them as targets for human rights violations. The military promoted binary “traditional” gender norms for men and women, which in the case of women emphasized women’s roles as mothers. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo used this maternal emphasis subversively, by drawing upon the junta’s ideals to subvert the military dictatorship (Taylor, 1997). Given the official ban on political activities, much of what occurred in this period was underground, with human rights groups actively working against the military dictatorship. Women were active in human rights groups, and it was the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (and their sister organization, the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo) who were largely responsible for drawing intentional attention to the military dictatorship’s human rights abuses (Sutton, 2010). In addition to the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, other women organized as housewives for economic rights and feminist groups – many of whom had been forced underground – grew increasingly bold as the military dictatorship lost its grip on power in the early 1980s, providing a diversity of avenues for women’s political participation (Feijoó, 1994).

Transitioning (1983–2001) The transition back to democracy returned male-dominated political parties as the main force of politics. To obtain women’s votes, parties created women’s fronts that appropriated feminist slogans and politicians spoke vaguely about improving women’s conditions but failed to offer many concrete policies (Feijoó, 1994). However, thanks to women’s activism, reproductive rights and domestic violence entered the public sphere as civil society flourished in the decades since the military dictatorship (Feijoó, 1994; Cosgrove, 2010). Although the military junta began neoliberalization, the pace quickened under the transitioning governments, most significantly under Carlos Menem. One of the largest movements in the 1990s that erupted against neoliberal reforms was the piquetero (picketer) movement, and the unemployed workers’ movements, both of which had a majority of women, who demanded that the government provide food and other necessities. Another form of collective action occurred in workplaces that demanded better pay and working conditions, where women were active (Sutton, 2010). Neoliberalization combined with state disavowal of some citizens, those of the working classes and poorer sectors, has exposed Argentina’s most socioeconomically disadvantaged to both periodic state brutality (typically rendered by the police) and state neglect in shantytowns across the country (Auyero & Berti, 2015; Auyero &

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Sobering, 2017). Already apparent by the early 1990s, these “brown spots,” which on ariel maps appear in stark contrast to the calming greens of wealthier areas, are not only dismal and depressing landscapes (O’Donnell, 1993, p.  1359), but additionally, contradictory spaces entailing both state neglect and police collusion with crime, where the informal economy and illicit economies thrive, overlaying one another (Glanc, 2014; Auyero & Berti, 2015). Thus, violence generated at the international level by Cold War politics settled like dust domestically in Argentina. Interpersonal violence – including forms of gender-based violence – is a concern in these spaces (Auyero & Berti, 2015).

Deficiently Democratic (2001–Present) In December 2001, the national economy imploded, and streets filled with citizens who demanded the resignation of President Fernando de la Rúa. Argentina witnessed an astonishingly rapid increase in poverty moving from 37% living in poverty in 2001 (already high) to 58% in 2002 (Sutton, 2010, p. 24). Activists with the picketers and workers’ movements, which had high levels of women’s participation and were influenced by popular feminism, intensified during the 2001–2002 economic and political crisis, which eventually saw Rúa’s resignation (Sutton, 2010). Since the transition to democracy, women have become the predominant actors in civil society, both in terms of the paid staff of nongovernmental organizations as well as unpaid members of civic organizations (Cosgrove, 2010). Further, the entrance of Néstor Kirchner into government in 2003 signaled a shift in terms of collective understandings around the military dictatorship. Over the 1980s and 1990s, most Argentines sought to avoid discussion of the human rights abuses enacted by the dictatorship. Kirchner sought new trials against the top military dictatorship officials who had been released from prison sentences in the 1990s. Krichner’s wife (and his vice president) Cristina Fernández de Kirchner continued with these policies as president (Sutton, 2010). State corruption remains a problem in Argentina (Hybel, 2019) as does the continuing state violence against the impoverished sectors of society (Auyero & Sobering, 2017) as well as gender-based violence against women (Diaz, 2021). However, women have been at the fore of contesting many of these political issues, most notably political violence. The next section traces the three cases of motherhood activism that this chapter is built around, to outline the origins of each.

Motherhood Activism in Three Vignettes This section overviews the mobilization of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Mothers against Paco and Moms Cultivate Argentina. Mothers are “celebrated” and “idealized” in Argentina with widespread discourses emphasizing that motherhood

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is “natural” for women and making demands on women to be self-sacrificing (Sutton, 2010, p.  96). Therefore, motherhood as an institution is embedded in Argentine society and although discourses on gender equality are on the rise, motherhood continues to place at least some limits on women’s ability to participate politically and on equal footing with men. Specifically, women are perceived as having caring obligations within the home since mothers are expected to perform all care work (Sutton, 2010), and/or women are understood to have different political specialties from men symbolically linked to motherhood, including “caring” issues around healthcare and education (Franceschet & Piscopo, 2014; Franceschet et al., 2016). The role of wife and mother remains one of the dividing factors in Argentina’s women’s movement, with some calling for its rejection while others embrace motherhood (Sutton, 2010). Although motherhood activism may come with limitations, political motherhood has provided a space for at least some women to engage politically. The first of the groups overviewed, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, offers a classic example of political motherhood.

Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo In April 1977, after about a dozen mothers of disappeared children had regularly run into one another during the exhausting rounds of police stations, government offices and military barracks in search of information on their children, these women chose to demonstrate. On the assumption that the military junta was simply unaware of the enforced disappearances, the women began a silent vigil in the Plaza de Mayo, a major square in Buenos Aires located in front of La Casa Rosada, the executive building, to gain the president’s attention and to ask for the return of their children. It became clear that the military dictatorship was not only aware of the disappearances but ultimately behind this tactic. Given that the mothers were just that – a group of mostly middle-aged housewives and mothers  – the military dictatorship simply ignored the women. However, every Thursday afternoon, the women silently circled the Plaza de Mayo on behalf of their disappeared children, and by October 1977, the women’s numbers had reached some 150 women (Bouvard, 1994). That same month, the group took out a newspaper advertisement in La Nación, which included 237 images of the disappeared under the probing statement, “We do not ask for anything more than the truth” (Simpson & Bennett, 1985, p. 159). The women’s growing numbers and bold newspaper ad spurred the government to act against the women, first by mocking them as the “Crazy Women of the Plaza de Mayo.” The tactic of enforced disappearance is used by governments not only to silence the disappeared (who are perceived as political opponents) and their families but to terrorize a population into submission. The message sent is that in speaking against the government, you or your loved ones could wind up disappeared ensuring that most citizens will keep their heads down and mouths shut (Taylor, 1997). In December 1977, the government took a bolder step. The de facto leader of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Azucena Villaflor, other members and two supporters,

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both non-nationals and nuns, were disappeared. (It was later confirmed that Villaflor and the two nuns were tortured and murdered by the state) (Simpson & Bennett, 1985; Bouvard, 1994). Despite the disappearances of their members and supporters, the mothers were undeterred and regrouped. In 1978, the activists moved from silent vigils to vocal demands, increasingly emboldened by outsiders’ awareness of the group, including among US and European officials, and those in intergovernmental and nongovernmental human rights organizations. Being known outside of Argentina protected the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo’s members from further gruesome violences such as being disappeared, although the women still endured regular harassment from state security agents, including verbal assaults and the wielding of weapons against them (Bouvard, 1994). Domestically portrayed by most media (which could not function independently under the military dictatorship) as mothers of terrorists who failed to raise their children properly (Taylor, 1997), as the group’s international popularity grew, many Argentines began to openly support the women, joining them in their weekly demonstrations (Bouvard, 1994). The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo have continued organizing since 1977, well into Argentina’s transition, during the twin economic and political crises of 2001–2002 and as Argentina began to right itself economically by the mid-2010s. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo have become a fixture in Argentine politics and continue to inspire younger generations of activists and have been the inspiration for disparate groups from South America to South Asia (Conn, 2018; Auyero & Berti, 2015; de Mel, 2001). The next vignette traces the rise of Mothers against Paco, which arose in a major shantytown in Buenos Aires.

Mothers Against Paco Violence congeals in poor areas of Argentina, both as state violence (which includes state neglect) and as interpersonal violence. Citizens are contradictorily abandoned and abused by the state, leading many to engage in illicit activities for survival, which can easily turn violent. In such spaces of desperation, citizens use violence to exert a sense of control, or out of a lack of other prospects (Auyero & Berti, 2015). Deepening neoliberalization slashed state services in Argentina over the 1990s, and as the once direct state violence of the military dictatorship shifted to both the violence of state neglect – such as failing to ensure basic citizens’ rights in services such as regular trash removal  – and veiled violence through collusion  – such as police accepting bribes from those committing crimes, and sometimes looking the other way when crime is committed – bred interpersonal violence in “brown spots” where desperation became part of the everyday (Auyero & Berti, 2015; Auyero & Sobering, 2017). The 2001–2002 collapse of Argentina’s economy and political system exacerbated these dire conditions, and although freebase cocaine, locally known as paco, was available to a degree already, in the fallout of the economic and political crises, paco became widespread in Buenos Aires Province, and Greater Buenos Aires in

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particular. Paco – a very cheap high – ultimately altered local economies, which were in flux due to the economic fallout of 2001, and has since led to a rise in robbery, thievery, small-time drug dealing and the selling “hot” items for sheer survival. Local economies have increasingly seen the exchange of such goods and services for paco (Epele, 2011). From its origins in 2003 in a shantytown in Buenos Aires known variously as Cuidad Oculta (Hidden City), Villa General Belgrano or Villa 15, Mothers against Paco has since expanded to many nearby shantytowns, squatter settlements and poor neighborhoods, composed of mothers seeking a means to save their children from the grips of paco (La Hora, 2009; Auyero & Sobering, 2017). Undoubtedly modeling themselves after the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Mothers against Paco have been working tirelessly since the early 2000s to address the overwhelming paco epidemic. The founders of the group understand their children have been “disappeared” by paco in a way reminiscent of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo’s disappeared children (Auyero & Berti, 2015). There are widespread perceptions among not only among members of Mothers against Paco but of many that the release of paco in poor areas is part of a genocidal plot by the government to rid themselves of these “undesirables,” not unlike the crack cocaine epidemic in the 1980s US Black-majority inner cities (Alexander, 2010; Journeyman Pictures, 2010; Vice, 2014). Such conspiratorial thinking is understandable given the horrors of the period of state terrorism when the military dictatorship ran over 300 clandestine detention centers across the country, where ordinary citizens were denied political freedom and endured torture and were sometimes killed. Working-­ class areas of Buenos Aires were the first areas targeted for enforced disappearance and the military junta actively worked to wipe out shantytowns (Feitlowitz, 1998). While Mothers against Paco work to rid the streets of paco to achieve peace, another group of mothers promotes the use of another drug to seek peace. These are the women of Mom Cultivates Argentina.

Mom Cultivates Argentina A growing global movement that supports cannabis (often termed marijuana) legalization, is, in part, a response to the securitized US-led “war on drugs” that has wreaked havoc both in the United States and far beyond US borders. The securitization of illicit drug production, distribution and consumption has caused widespread incarceration of US minorities (mainly working-class and poor men of color) for nonviolent crimes due to mandatory drug sentencing laws, or for lacking legal immigration documents, the latter of which is linked to the militarization of the US southern border, even as drug usage is not higher among US Black and Brown minorities compared to Anglo whites (Díaz-Cotto, 2005; Alexander, 2010; Sultan, 2020). Securitization of illicit drugs has exacerbated conflict throughout much of Latin America and the Caribbean as state and nonstate actors, including armed militias, fund operations and/or personal wealth through drug production in

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an environment of growing economic inequality and poverty, which induces desperate people into the drug trade, where they face incarceration, even at the lowest levels of drug distribution and possession (Díaz-Cotto, 2005; Carpenter, 2014; Másmela & Tickner, 2017). Another call for cannabis’s legalization is linked to its perceived medical benefits. While some evidence suggests that cannabis may bring relief to those suffering from some forms of epilepsy, cancer and chronic pain (Freeman et  al., 2019), negative long-term cognitive effects, particularly among recreational users, remain a concern for medical and healthcare scholars and experts (WHO, 2016). Regardless, the growing financial profits of cannabis, particularly legal cannabis, suggest that legalization may be inevitable, and the carceral repercussions in the Americas suggest that at the very least decriminalization is a necessary step toward justice and therefore peace. It is in this wider context of the “war on drugs” and demand for cannabis for therapeutic purposes that the Argentine state had long denied to suffering citizens that Mom Cultivates Argentina arose. Mom Cultivates Argentina’s mission is to fully legalize cannabis in Argentina mainly on the argument of the drug’s therapeutic benefits. The founder of Mom Cultivates Argentina, Valeria Salech, is a feminist and mother whose son suffers from epilepsy and autism. Salech witnessed a profound transformation in her son’s quality of life once he began taking small amounts of cannabis, beginning at age 8. Prior to this, her son required bibs and diapers as he struggled both to eat and control his bladder. Since regularly ingesting microdoses of cannabis, both diaper and bib have become unnecessary and Salech claims that her son has become better able to interact with others (Steven, 2020). In March 2016, during a national congressional session to draft a bill to legalize marijuana for medical purposes, Salech was struck by the number of citizens in the room, who were overwhelmingly women. Salech decided to found Mom Cultivates Argentina to represent these women who were deemed by many  – including the government – as “bad mothers” for not listening to their doctors and the state and seeking to administer cannabis to their children (Steven, 2020). Mom Cultivates Argentina had their work cut out for them under the right-leaning government of Mauricio Macri (of the Republican Proposal party, 2015–2019), but has seen results since the Alberto Fernández government (of the left-leaning Justicialist Party) came to power (Politi, 2020). The women of Mom Cultivates Argentina fight to administer cannabis to their children for therapeutic benefits follow in the footsteps of maternal groups such as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and Mothers against Paco, in their own way enhancing justice and peace in Argentina. In summing up these three vignettes of motherhood activism in Argentina, it is abundantly clear that these women are not inherently conservative, even at the time of their mobilizations. From the start, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo were defiantly oppositional to a murderous military junta and Mothers against Contra have not hesitated to blame the government for the paco epidemic. While it may not be a conspiratorial job, state violence – through both neglect by the state and via collusion between state representatives and drug distributors – is a cause of paco’s widespread (and growing) use among Argentine youth. Mom Cultivates Argentina’s

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initial opposition to the government’s ban on cannabis for any purpose rather obviously places these mothers in a progressive camp. The chapter turns now to a discussion of these mother groups’ empowered constructions of motherhood, which will demonstrate how these motherhood activists have even grown more progressive over time and/or have adopted additional progressive issues as part of their repertoire.

 mpowered Constructions of Motherhood Developed E Through Grief Despite the specific contexts of violence in which the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Mothers against Paco and Mom Cultivates Argentina arose, it was largely grief over the loss and/or suffering of their children that mobilized the women. Although initially, the activists zeroed in on their specific situations, over time the women’s collective efforts have promoted constructions of full and sustainable peace. The period following an armed conflict – even a war in which the state has “fought” its citizens – is enormously precarious, and vulnerable to a return to conflict. These motherhood activist organizations have ensured Argentina stays on a path of sustainable peace, starting in the period of state terrorism.

 pposing State Violence Under the Military Dictatorship O and the Transition to Democracy The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo had openly opposed the dictatorship since 1977 and had sought a return to democracy. In 1982, in a failing economy and following an embarrassing military loss to Britain over the Islas Malvinas (Falkland Islands), which are held by the British but claimed by Argentina, the military dictatorship announced its intention to transition to a civilian government. By this point, enforced disappearances had largely ceased and the military junta directed its focus to ensuring its amnesty under democratic rule. At the end of 1983, in the heady days leading up to democratic elections, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo were wildly popular as Argentines everywhere came out for democracy. However, in the transition period, as most Argentines sought to push away the horrors of state terrorism, the Mothers continued to demand justice for crimes against humanity committed by the military dictatorship, to seek the return of the disappeared and to preserve the memories of state terrorism. This made the women once again domestically unpopular, vilified as ignorant women who understood nothing of politics. Internally too, problems rose as members disagreed over whether to work with the newly elected democratic government or to remain solidly oppositional, and members disagreed over the methods of remembrance to preserve the memory of the period of state terrorism (Bouvard, 1994).

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In 1986, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo split into two lines, the Founding Line and the Association, over protracted differences that arose in a changing political environment (Bouvard, 1994). The Founding Line elected to work with the new democratic government and seek justice by recovering the remains of the disappeared and creating memorials to preserve the memory of the period of state terrorism (Agosín, 1990; McCormack, 2014). Conversely, the Association avoided government collaboration and claimed that their children were not dead but rather lived within their “permanently pregnant” bodies, which were deemed the only appropriate memorial to the disappeared (Bouvard, 1994; Bevernage, 2012). The work to memorialize the military dictatorship was fraught until the year 1995, which was a turning point for Argentina. A former naval officer admitted publicly that he had assisted in disposing of some of the disappeared (very much still living) into La Plata River. This sparked a societal shift, what Nancy Gates-Madsen (2016) calls a “memory boom,” in which many Argentines, especially a younger generation that had come of age after the end of the military dictatorship wanted answers about this period. Hijos por la Identidad y la Justicia contra el Olvido y el Silencio (Sons and Daughters for Identity and Justice against Forgetting and Silence) (HIJOS) was launched by children with disappeared parents and began working closely with the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo to promote the history of the period of state terrorism (Gates-Madsen, 2016).

 oward the End of the Transition to Democracy and into T the Contemporary Period The dual whammy of the 2001–2002 economic and political crises moved the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo toward meeting immediate needs over justice for past crimes. Both lines of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo engaged in demanding economic rights, joining forces with worker-run factories and protesting the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) stringent conditions placed on Argentina in the aftermath of the economic fallout. When Néstor Kirchner’s government (of the left-leaning Justicialist Party, 2003–2007) launched new trials against the top leaders of the military dictatorship for crimes committed during the military dictatorship, the Mothers had new opportunities for achieving their memory, truth and justice activism. However, they continued their activism for contemporary political and economic justice (Sutton, 2010). (Notably, the Association branch had begun this work as early as the 1990s) (Bouvard, 1994). In 2015, as the right-leaning Macri government downplayed the atrocities of the military dictatorship and argued that it was time to move past this history, during the 40th anniversary of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, in 2017, both branches jointly decried the Macri government and proclaimed the need to “Never forgive, never forget” the period of state terrorism (Bosco, 2004; Iricibar, 2017). In addition to carrying on their work around memory, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina’s solidly democratic period also

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highlighted the need for economic rights, economic redistribution, democracy and feminist issues such as women’s right to accessible abortion (Sutton & Borland, 2013). Like the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, the earliest efforts of the Mothers against Paco to raise awareness around their “disappeared” children – disappeared by paco addiction – were for extremely personal reasons. However, over time, the group’s efforts for collective solutions began to address the growing inequalities in Argentina, which undermine sustainable peace. Mothers against Paco attended local government-sponsored events and engaged in demonstrations to draw attention to the paco epidemic and to demand government solutions. By 2006, this netted a handful of government-run clinics to treat paco addiction (Vice, 2014). One form of their protests is escraches. HIJOS, described above, launched escraches in the 1990s to shame those responsible for human rights abuses during the military dictatorship and demand that these individuals submit to judicial processes, and served to promote policy changes to remember the period of state terrorism (Lessa & Levey, 2015). Mothers against Paco use escraches against drug dealers to both publicly shame these individuals as well as draw state attention to the crime of drug distribution. Typically, the women surround the houses of known drug dealers and demand judicial action. In some instances, these efforts have led judges to issue arrest warrants to search for drugs to begin a process of stopping drug activities. Such a move is critical given that the police work to prevent criminal activity only at their choosing and often collude with drug dealers to take a cut of deals (Auyero & Berti, 2015). Another part of the mothers’ activism is supporting those suffering from losing a loved one to paco and attempting to help paco users receive medical treatment. While paco renders its users into “zombies” or “the walking dead” who can easily overdose, it also makes users’ loved ones susceptible to being robbed by their using children, or subject to users’ angry outbursts. One mother lost her daughter to her daughter’s boyfriend who murdered the daughter during an episode of rage while high on paco (Journeyman Pictures, 2010; Auyero & Berti, 2015). The women work toward sustainable peace by ending the “genocide” that they perceive the paco epidemic to be. The widespread belief among not just the mothers but many impacted by drugs in Argentina’s brown spots is that paco was intentionally introduced by the government to end life (Journeyman Pictures, 2010; Vice, 2014). The conflation of paco with genocide is reminiscent of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo’s use of the term to describe what occurred to the disappeared during the military dictatorship. Although some mothers seek to remove particular drugs from the streets of Argentina as means to peace and justice, other mothers work to promote sustainable peace by ensuring their children have access to drugs. The Moms Cultivate Argentina’s agenda seeks the legalization of cannabis for medical purposes for their children. Additionally, the group is outwardly feminist, most notably through its support for the #NiUnaMenos (Not One More) movement (Steven, 2020). #NiUnaMenos is an Argentine grassroots campaign against gender-based violence (GBV) that launched in 2015 in response to the murder of Chiara Páez, a 14-year-­ old female adolescent, by her boyfriend, who beat her to death. With femicide – the

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murder of a girl or woman simply for being a girl or woman – widespread in Latin America, #NiUnaMenos has spread to other countries, seeking to promote attention to the issue of femicide and other forms of GBV that women face across much of the region. #NiUnaMenos also advocates for women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights, specifically the right to abortion, not only in Argentina but in other parts of Latin America as well (Diaz, 2021). The first chapter of Mom Cultivates began in Chile and spread through much of the region. Argentina’s chapter is the largest, with nearly three times the number of members as Mom Cultivates Chile (Hasse, 2020). Like other chapters, from its founding in 2016, Mom Cultivates Argentina encourages Argentines to grow therapeutic marijuana for personal and familial consumption, and did so from their founding, despite this being illegal at the time, with the risk of four to 15 years of prison time if caught (Hasse, 2020; Politi, 2020). The government of the right-­ leaning Macri was particularly against the use of cannabis. As of 2020, under the new government of Fernández, thanks to the efforts of Mom Cultivates Argentina and other pro-medical cannabis advocates, the government signed into law the right to cultivate cannabis for medical use but requires a license (Politi, 2020).

Sustainable Peace Under Different Forms of State Violence Although mobilized through grief, these examples of motherhood activism in Argentina construct agentic mothers seeking to create and sustain full peace. Peace cannot be understood as simply the absence of armed conflict. It entails a full accounting of justice, and it is just this accounting that ensures the prevention of future armed conflicts (Alexander, 2019). As the UN (2015) notes, sustaining peace is an ongoing challenge. Given the difficulties of achieving and maintaining peace, active and inclusive participation of all sectors of society working toward peace is critical, and those who choose to identify as mothers can be one part of the process of peacebuilding. Further, despite the valid concerns of some who fear confining women to strictly “maternal” issues when women are mobilized as mothers (Taylor, 1997), the activism of the Mothers of the Plaza Mayo, Mothers against Paco and Mom Cultivates Argentina clarify that political motherhood, even if it does exemplify some aspects of patriarchy, which demands that women mother (Kandiyoti, 1988), also subverts patriarchy by challenging the state and others in positions of patriarchal authority (Kaplan, 1982). Whether the state comes after citizens through direct, covert and/or inactive violence, the mothers in these groups have pushed Argentina – often unwillingly – to confront injustices that the populace would rather ignore. The women’s work remains ongoing given that sustainable peace is never finished. Preventing future conflict remains an active undertaking and one that this chapter suggests requires the participation of empowered mothers.

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 onclusion: Bolstering Women’s Political Agency C and Sustainable Peace This chapter has sought to answer the question of how motherhood activism contributes to sustainable peace in an Argentina marked by evolving forms of political violence. The chapter argues that by examining the empowered constructions of motherhood exemplified by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Mothers against Paco and Mom Cultivates Argentina demonstrates that women have used their political agency to contribute to sustainable peace by retaining the memory of the period of state terrorism and demanding accountability from the state for not only direct violence such as enforced disappearances, but for state failures in ensuring political, economic and social justice and equality. What is commendable is how adaptable political motherhood can be to varying deployments of political violence. Although the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo was launched by women with no experience with activism, even no experience of paying attention to politics (Bouvard, 1994), the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo recently celebrated their 45th anniversary, proving earlier detractors wrong that they were too naïve to be engaged politically for long, or that they would remain boxed into political issues pertaining to their children or to only so-called maternal concerns. Mothers against Paco have likewise made commendable progress in bringing attention to the dangers of paco and to the political violence enacted through both action and inaction by a state that would have preferred to simply ignore the paco epidemic, given its impacts on mainly the socioeconomically disadvantaged. Since achieving legal cannabis for medical purposes, members of Moms Cultivate Argentina provide workshops and online information sessions on self-cultivation of cannabis and the how-tos of administering cannabis safely (Hasse, 2020). The devastation of the Argentine economy by the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2022 IMF renegotiation and the Southern Cone’s (which includes Argentina, Chile and Uruguay) position as the new preferred port for the illicit exportation of cocaine to Europe (Charles, 2022) suggest the need for continuing efforts of these motherhood groups to address economic injustice. Further, that economic injustice is linked to GBV, motherhood groups will also need to address, just as Moms Cultivate Argentina already do, other forms of injustice to push Argentina on a path of sustainable and full peace.

References Ackerly, B., & True, J. (2010). Doing feminist research in political and social science. Palgrave Macmillan. Agosín, M. (1990). The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo (Linea Fundadora): The story of Renée Epelbaum 1976–1985 (J. Molloy, Trans.). The Red Sea Press. Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. The New Press.

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Empowering or Entrapping in Indigenous Patriarchy? Political Motherhood in India’s Northeast Conflict Zones Rita Manchanda

Abstract  This chapter analyzes the scope for transformation of the archetypal grieving mother, the icon of suffering from political violence, into a female social and political agency with the power to challenge the symbol of militarized state repression—the anti-democratic law Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA)— in India’s conflict zones of the Northeast. The puzzle it engages with here is: what can happen when indigenous ethnic patriarchies are challenged and political motherhood goes beyond gender-appropriate norms, modes, and goals? Can such destabilizing gender transitions and transgressions open up ways to reimagine new gender identities and notions of indigenous citizenship? Within a contextual framing of political motherhood in the two adjacent states of Nagaland and Manipur in the region, I examine the scope and empowering limits of political motherhood. The protracted nature of the conflict-post conflict continuum affords a long-view analysis of inter-generational transitions in collective modes of protest that seek to push beyond motherhood politics. This chapter is a contribution to the oeuvre of writing on women-peace-security which expands the geographic experiential archive, and bridges the conceptual gap to emphasize the importance of women’s resistance politics in conflict zones, and the need to frame it within a dialectics of victimhood and agency.

Introduction Can the empowering metaphor of political motherhood in contexts of militarized patriarchy reach beyond the iconic “grieving mother” to carve out destabilizing and transformative spaces for re-imagining women as rights-bearing subjects? Can the moral authority and sacralized power that inhere in the gender-appropriate modes and goals of “mothers’ peace-work” transition to non-hegemonic ways of imagining R. Manchanda (*) Independent Consultant, New Delhi, India © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Ü. Arıboğan, H. Khelghat-Doost (eds.), Constructing Motherhood Identity Against Political Violence, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36538-6_5

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women’s identities and reworking gendered relations? Can there be a pushback against the backlash of local indigenous patriarchies at transitions and gendered transgressions that destabilize hegemonic modes of resistance and assert political agency for peace, justice, and equality? Can the construction of motherhood as social and political agency in the unsettling context of the conflict-post-conflict continuum be easily co-opted when “normalcy” and the gendered status quo are re-established? Does female agency in political violence require that it be constructed at the expense of motherhood? (Sjoberg & Gentry, 2007) Several of these complex and contradictory questions were the feminist subtext of the predicament that some of the mothers’ groups in India’s conflict zones of the Northeast region found themselves facing. Motherhood is the dominant metaphor of women’s collective activism against state militarization, intra-factional peace-­ making, and peacebuilding in the hills and valleys of India’s borderlands (Kolas, 2017; Das, 2008). In a highly masculinized, militarized society, political motherhood may be the only way to help open otherwise closed spaces for women to participate in political processes. But as several studies have critically observed, negotiations of agency through political motherhood reinforce gender essentialism (Ahall, 2012; Aroussi, 2009) and deny women the transition to decision-making agency. Mother groups’ strategies of resistance in peacekeeping and peacebuilding are enacted in accordance with a patriarchal script that women have internalized no less than men. Political motherhood as collectively performed by grieving mothers, the archetypal victims of war, politicizes mourning by its collective performance in public space which in a highly segregated society is destabilizing, but tying it to the identity of a mother is to allow gender-appropriate norms of family, community and nation to flourish unthreatened. Arguably, this may explain why there is the invariable pushback of women once the crisis subsides and political peace talks begin (Manchanda & Bose, 2015). As Naga anthropologist Dolly Kikon critically observed, “limiting the definition of women to mothers and understanding women as peacemakers and active participants in conflict resolution enables a specific space for women’s politics in the Northeast; however, their activities are understood as social and not political” (Kikon, 2005). The puzzle I seek to engage with here is: what can happen when indigenous ethnic patriarchies are challenged and mothers seek to translate the moral authority of their peace work into claiming agency in the formal sphere of politics? Can there be a transition to non-hegemonic ways of imagining women’s identities and transitions toward more equal modes of citizenship? Can the public performance of gender transgressions that destabilize appropriate norms and modes of behavior be easily co-opted, or can they open up ways to reimagine new subjectivities and ways of imagining notions of citizenship? Within a contextual framing of political motherhood in the two adjacent states of Nagaland and Manipur in India’s northeast region, I examine the scope and empowering limits of political motherhood. The focus is on specific crisis moments of transition and gendered transgressions that involved destabilizing hegemonic norms and disrupting gender-appropriate practices.

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In Nagaland, I explore the contentious politics surrounding the Naga Mothers’ “overreach” in seeking a transition from an apolitical engagement to political protagonism in representative politics and the fierce backlash of indigenous patriarchies. In Manipur, attention is focused on teasing out the multiple meanings of a singular moment of gender transgression: The Mothers’ Naked Protest and its implications for the destabilization of hegemonic gender-appropriate norms and modes of women’s resistance. Is it required that the transgression be co-opted as an exceptional slippage so as to reaffirm hegemonic socio-cultural norms and enable a future motherhood politics of resistance to continue? In the chapter, I track the rich narratives of political motherhood as the dominant mode of women’s collective activism against militarization, framing it within a dialectic of victimhood and agency. Victimhood is challenged by the mothers’ modes of collective resistance performed through a politicization of mourning, of shame, and of care labor (Gopinath & Manchanda, 2019). The protracted nature of the conflict-post-conflict continuum also affords a long-view analysis of inter-­ generational transitions in collective modes of protest that seek to push beyond motherhood politics. In Nagaland, the chapter brings in an inter-generational dynamic and locates the shifts in Naga Mother’s political aspirations and articulation within the context of the overall social churning happening in Naga tribal society. In the country’s conflict discourse, as reflected in well-known book titles, the Northeast borderlands are projected as the “troubled periphery,” “the periphery strikes back,” and “beyond counterinsurgency,” and are legally categorized by Indian administrators as “disturbed areas” of armed insurgency and counterinsurgency. For the people of these “zones of exception” in the Indian Union, it is experienced as militarized oppression by a colonial state in relation to the Indian nation’s incomplete citizens (Bora, 2010). Resistance in the Northeast has become focalized around the Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA), a former colonial law that independent India reintroduced in 1958 to suppress the Naga national self-­ determination struggle. Since then, AFSPA has been extended to Manipur (1980) and other areas in the Northeast, as well as Jammu and Kashmir (1990). AFSPA has entrenched a culture of impunity trailing extrajudicial killings, disappearances, torture, and rape. Several studies have analyzed the impact of AFSPA on women as direct and indirect victims in the Northeast (Baker, 2012; Banerjee, 2016; Kikon, 2016; Nepram, 2011). Sec. 4 provides “sweeping power to arrest, without a warrant”, and the “use of lethal force on reasonable suspicion.” Sec.6 provides for non-accountability as “No prosecution, suit or other legal proceeding shall be instituted, except with the previous sanction of the Central Government (To date no sanction has been given, including for rape and murder).

Political motherhood in the Northeast has targeted AFSPA, and women have been at the forefront of the campaigns to repeal AFSPA. Haobam Paban Kumar’s film AFSPA 1958 evocatively captures the intensity of the rallies of the torch-bearing Meira Paibis or Manipur mothers groups, defiantly marching against AFSPA and being chased and beaten by soldiers. In contrast, Nagaland, after five decades of intense militarized conflict and repression, is in a ceasefire and peace process

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situation. But AFSPA has not been withdrawn, and military atrocities under its sweeping “shoot at sight” culture continue to be a lived reality. In December 2021 at Oting in Mon district, six unarmed miners returning home in a truck were gunned down by the army (and seven were shot in the protests that followed). The official justification was “mistaken identity.” The crisis prompted the Naga Mothers, flanked by a delegation of 29 women tribal leaders, to demand from the governor (the Indian Union’s representative) to repeal AFSPA (Morung Express, 7/12/21). It is striking that whereas political motherhood is publicly mobilized against state violations of human rights, rarely, if ever, are there protests against violations by non-state forces, including violence against women. Decades of living between two armed patriarchies and a culture of impunity under AFSPA have produced a social context in which women confront multiple insecurities. Kikon’s anatomy of a young daughter’s incestuous violation by her father, a UG cadre, reveals a social context of indigenous patriarchal norms of family intersected by armed factional rivalries, which converge to render the girl more vulnerable (Kikon, 2016). Naga Mothers groups have appealed, in private, to the Naga collective leadership to act against armed cadres involved in assaulting women. But the subordinate status of women makes action for accountability quite rare in a social milieu where wife beating and incest are common though rarely reported. Moreover, as Monalisa Changkija, managing editor Nagaland Page bitterly observed, customary arbitration courts are all male and are likely to blame women complainants (Interview, Dimapur 26/08/2013). Similarly, in Manipur, as leading peace activist Binalakshmi Nepram commented, “The women’s movement in India’s northeast that has emerged in response to the ongoing armed conflict is still confined to the ‘saving the sons of the soil’ syndrome” (2011). In a legal study of violence against women (VAW) under AFSPA, Jo Baker observed that “in any conflict context, women who lobby for women’s rights specifically—if not in relation to direct acts of violence—can invite charges of disloyalty, even sedition, from all sides” (2012). McDuie-Ra, in his analysis of the experience of VAW in India’s militarized frontier, found that whereas local women’s groups are able to contest the “external, non-familial context of VAW,” they are less able to contest the “internal, familial context,” particularly when this involves speaking out against their own tribal or ethnic community (2012). Particularly in the context of ethno-nationalist conflicts, scholar de Mel (2001) has analyzed the complex ways in which the ideological construct and practices of “nation” and “ethnicity” intersect with patriarchy. Studies of the women’s question in ethno-nationalist movements in India have shown that women’s agency is dependent on finely navigating a balance between the women being embedded in community identity struggles and their struggle to imagine other gender identities and more equal modes of citizenship (Das, 2008; Manchanda & Kakran, 2017). In what follows, the chapter briefly discusses the socio-political frontier location of the conflict zones in the Northeast borderlands. Next, it engages with the Naga story, encapsulating the consolidation of Naga women’s social agency by innovating a motherhood politics in a highly militarized space and thereby garnering legitimacy as essential participants in the Indo-Naga peace process. I analyze the Naga Mother’s

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political assertion within the logic of an inter-generational transition and the fierce indigenous backlash that follows. Further, I discuss the political motherhood of the Meira Paibis and the Manipur Mothers and their gender-appropriate norms and modes of protest, including the indefinite fast of Irom Sharmila. Then, focusing on a singular moment of gender transgression: Mothers’ Naked Protest, I tease out the multiple meanings of the performance and its implications for destabilizing hegemonic gender norms and modes of protest. The qualitative analysis of the chapter builds upon the rich theoretical and empirically based critical analysis of political motherhood in the literature (Ruddick, 1989; Skjelsboek & Smith, 2001; Ahall, 2012; de Alwis, 1997; Das, 2008). The aim is to expand the geographic experiential archive to focus on conflict zones that have been unduly neglected in global narratives of gender, conflict, and peace. Also, I propose to foreground the gendered politics of resistance and resilience in the collective action of mothers’ groups against militarization and for peacebuilding. Conceptually, in exploring the limits of empowering political motherhood, I analyze the social space for gendered transgressions within the patriarchal logic of co-optation or changed gender identities and notions of indigenous citizenship. The chapter is grounded in years of my own participatory action-based research in these conflict zones. Further, I have been able to draw upon a rich outcrop of emerging ethnographic writings by young scholars from the region.

Northeast Frontier Lands The conflict zones of India’s northeastern borderlands are outliers in caste-­ majoritarian Hindu India, geographically, historically, and socioculturally. The region was configured as a frontier zone comprising diverse religions, ethnicities, nations, and tribes, an object of knowledge constituted by colonialism, nationalism, and counter-insurgency discourses. It is spatially and tenuously connected to the Indian mainland and shares four international borders. The region’s separate geographic and historical trajectories set it apart from India’s decolonizing story, while the people’s “Tibeto-Burman” ethnicities render them socially and culturally “alien” in mainland India and politically “incomplete” citizens. The NE has been a field of identity-based struggles for a homeland of one’s own, an endlessly conflict-­ ridden frontier (Bhaumik, 2009; Baruah, 2009; Oinam & Sadokpam, 2018). The Naga tribal nation was the first to launch a struggle for self-determination in the 1950s and confront the Indian state’s military force. AFSPA was imposed in 1958 as a symbol of the state’s militarized repression and a culture of impunity. It was in the Naga Hills that the Indian state honed its counterinsurgency strategies and its flawed peacemaking strategies via accords that granted autonomies and statehood, beginning with Nagaland. The strategy effectively fractioned the Naga national movement but did not stop the struggle, and militarized it further (Manchanda et al., 2015). In 1980, AFSPA was extended to the adjoining Manipur

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state. A former princely territory, the kingdom’s accession to the India Union, has been a troubled one, leading to popular but fragmented movements for self-rule inspired by memories of Manipur’s autonomous status (Oinam & Sadokpam, 2018). While the valley is populated by the dominant ethnic Metei population, the hills are inhabited by the Naga and Kuki tribes. The result is that Manipur’s conflict map is contoured by Indo-Naga armed struggle, intra-hill-valley struggles, inter-tribal conflict, and above all, the splintered ethnic Metei groups at war with the Indian state over a lost independence.

 aga Mothers: From Apolitical Peace-Work N to Political Assertion Naga women’s experiences of surviving six decades of violent conflict and cold peace involved localized resistance to military oppression, intra-factional peace-­ making, keeping the peace during the long ceasefire, and safeguarding peace negotiations for concluding an “honorable” peace agreement. In the war years, Naga women’s bodies were brutally assaulted and mutilated in accordance with the patriarchal ideology of teaching the community a lesson, humiliating its failure to “protect” its own women, and “spoiling” the reproducer of the community. In an inversion of body politics, Naga Mothers used their bodies to confront a more powerful opponent by shaming the “state protector.” It is noteworthy that during turbulent moments of the protracted ceasefire, Naga Mothers continued to use such body politics to prevent violent clashes between state forces and armed cadres of Naga national groups (Haksar, 2009). Mothers from villages near and far would camp for days, as at the famous Mao Gate faceoff in 2010 when one of the top leaders of the Naga national movement, Th. Muivah, was blocked from entering Manipur to visit his home village there (Bhatia, 2010). It was spiraling inter-factional violence that vaulted the welfare-oriented Naga Mothers Association (NMA) into peace politics. From being a loose grassroots grouping comprising members of tribal women’s organizations, pre-occupied with moral policing and hounding of drug peddlers, NMA took on responsibility for stopping Naga killing Naga. Daily, bodies used to be found lying unclaimed in the bazaars, the victims of fratricidal killings. In alliance with the churches, the NMA dared to perform socially appropriate funereal rites, wrapping the body in the tribe’s distinct shawl and thereby ritually affirming the value of all life. In 1994, NMA launched Shed No More Blood. “Peace Teams” of mothers, through their tribal affiliation, reached out to diverse tribal factions, talking to the “boys” like a “mother” into reconciling (Manchanda, 2004: 39). Mothers used their everyday practices of care labor, structured around the enabling comfort of the hearth and the provision of food, to talk local and apex factional leaders into ending violence. Social sanction for Naga women’s social agency was rooted in their traditional role as peacemakers between warring villages from the head-hunting days when a demi or a pukrelia would step forward in the midst of battle and halt the violence (2004: 43).

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Singular was the Mothers’ role in keeping the channels of communication open between the leaders of the dominant Naga national groups’ armed factions so as to facilitate an inclusive peace process (Saikia, 2019) The “Unity” question, or “who speaks for the Nagas,” has been weaponized by Indian intelligence agencies to discredit the possibility of “eternally warring” Naga tribes constituting a unified Naga nation. A fictive Naga nation of tribes endlessly feuding would render the necessity of a political resolution of the Naga imbroglio irrelevant (Ravi, 2014). Even the Indo-Naga Ceasefire Agreement (1997) was negotiated with only one Naga national group, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) Isak-­ Muivah, which was the dominant armed group. Excluded were the splintered factions, including the NSCN Khaplang group, which at the time had a formidable presence in Nagaland along the Indo-Myanmar border. Naga social collectives, especially the NMA and their cross-border sister organization, the Naga Women’s Union (NMU) in Manipur, worked to widen the ambit of the ceasefire to encompass excluded factions. At watershed moments during the long ceasefire, NMA and NWU leaders would undertake the arduous trek across the border into Myanmar and then via bike and boat to National Socialist Council of Nagaland – Khaplang (NSCN-K) headquarters, so as to break the group’s isolation, facilitate an indirect channel of communication, and encourage cooperation. In these journeys of reconciliation, particularly significant was the NMA and NWU’s outreach to Khaplang in 1999 to join the ceasefire and again in 2015 when he abrogated the Indo-NSCN-K 2001 ceasefire agreement. NMA’s unbroken dialogue with “our boys” challenged the government’s decision to ban the NSCN–K as a terrorist organization and set up a bounty on their heads. Subsequently, on SS Khaplang’s death in 2017, the Naga Mothers journeyed to the military camps to re-establish communication with the new leadership (Manchanda, 2021). Earlier, when factional violence spiked in 2006–2008, the NMA and NWU joined the Naga tribes’ apex bodies—the Naga Students Federation, the Naga Ho Ho, and the churches—to launch the Forum for Naga Reconciliation, a non-partisan civil society initiative. It birthed the Joint Working Group, a mechanism to enable face-to-face communication among warring factions so as to reduce inter-factional violence. A Peoples Convention was convened for all Naga in 2012 to bring all “underground” factions to share a stage without hostility and take the Naga people in confidence. But the internal dynamics of politico-military groups rooted in an underground culture militated against transparency and democratization and weakened civil society efforts (Das 2008: 47–48). It is important to note that the Naga apex bodies are of relatively recent vintage, e.g., Naga Ho Ho 1998, NMA 1984/1994, NWU 1994. Their members were inspired by the ideational influence of modern organizations like the Naga Peoples Movement for Human Rights (NPMHR) of 1977, which had important connections with democratic rights-based movements in India and internationally with the Asian Indigenous Peoples’ Pact. Also, ideas about civil society and its potential for peacebuilding were spreading across borders, especially from the Sri Lanka conflict, and were carried on the shoulders of visiting Indian human rights activists.

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Moreover, the 1997 Indo-Naga ceasefire expanded the non-partisan middle space for civil society agencies (Manchanda & Bose, 2015). Central to the civil society discourse was the logic that, in asymmetrical conflicts, the support of civil society groups, especially women’s groups, provides strategic depth to an armed “rebel” group confronting a powerful state. But for politico-military groups such as the NSCN, rooted in a secretive underground culture, trust and outreach would be troublesome. When the Indo-Naga Framework Agreement (2015) was negotiated, Naga apex bodies were altogether excluded. The text of the agreement was kept secret. However, in 2019, when the survival of the peace process hung by a thread, largely because of the success of the divisive machinations of the government’s special envoy, NMA and other apex Naga bodies rallied in support of a collapsing peace process, NSCN I-M Leader Th. Muivah appreciatively acknowledged the crucial role of Naga social groups in supporting an “honorable” and inclusive peace (Morung Express 27/10/2019). Since the initial NSCN-civil society dialogues in Bangkok in 2001–2002, NMA has been an integral participant in all such conversations, including the annual Naga Flag Raising (Republic) Day ceremonies, the Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR), and the Peoples Conventions. It is argued that the Naga Mothers, through their peace work, transformed their erstwhile ceremonial presence into substantive moral authority and social agency in the socio-political world of the Nagas. Noticeably though, the moral authority of the Mothers as legitimate stakeholders in the peace process did not carry over to India’s higher authorities who tended to undervalue their autonomy and significance (Manchanda, 2004). Among the Naga tribes, the social construct of “motherhood” provided acceptability for women’s everyday micropolitics and positioned NMA’s intervention in the public sphere as apolitical. It was perceived as a stretching of their traditional familial labor of care and nurture, the extension of kitchen politics into the public sphere, thereby politicizing it. Mothers’ strategies of resistance, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding were in accordance with gender-appropriate norms and modes of activism. In the early ceasefire years, NMA’s political strategist Neidonuo Angami consciously held back from engaging with the political agenda, saying that “the decision has to be theirs [leaders], and our job is to take advantage of the ceasefire period to facilitate a peaceful atmosphere so that a permanent solution may follow on what they decide” (Manchanda, 2004: 71). Arguably, the position was a tactical one, much like the mobilization of apolitical motherhood, aimed at retaining the trust of all factions. The language was consensual, avoiding provoking indigenous patriarchies. Even NMA’s transition from welfare to peacebuilding in the 1990s met with opposition. That may explain why NMA in Nagaland held back while NWU in Manipur boldly pursued a gender equality agenda, reflecting the concerns of the professional women who were the latter’s office bearers. It would take a generational shift for the Naga Mothers to transition toward articulating a more gender equal politics and claiming political agency. That generational shift is apparent in the difference between the consensual style and a-political content of the peace politics of former NMA President Neidonuo Angami, and the assertiveness of the more recent office bearers of NMA and their Advisors

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(Manchanda & Kakran, 2017). The NMA’s transformational journey is mirrored in the contrasting responses to the NMA of two Naga women professionals belonging to two different generations. The Nagaland Page editor Monalisa Changkija, back from University in the 1980s, looked askance at the then welfare-oriented NMA, was alienated from its moral policing activities, and kept a distance too from NMA’s a-political peace-making norms and modes of activism. Two decades later, Professor Rosemary Dzuvichu is an advisor to the NMA and steering the campaign of an expanding generation of educated, professional tribal women challenging women’s exclusion from decision-making. They are questioning customary law arbitration practices that reinforce violence against women in a social context of deep militarization and impunity (Kikon, 2016). Naga Mothers’ assertiveness in claiming equal rights as political subjects should be located within the overall context of the social churning taking place to reimagine equality and inclusion in “post-conflict” Naga society. Market penetration has seen the capitalization of the tribes’ communitarian economies (Sridhar & Khunenchu, 2017; NEN, 2016). Six decades of Nagaland statehood have widened the circle of stakeholders in the existing Indian state system. In Nagaland, modern state governance structures coexist with traditional tribal structures of authority and the more recent and competing apex bodies: Naga Ho Ho, NMA, and the Naga People’s Movement for Human. Rights (NPMHR) (Wouters, 2018; Chophy & Zhimo, 2018). The protracted ceasefire has produced multiple and intersecting circles of power and accelerated the conditions for the growth of a new middle class in terms of urbanization, education, and employment (Manchanda et al., 2015). Comprising this new middle class is a generation of educated, professional Naga women who straddle the worlds of tradition and modernity and are as at home in Kohima and Ukhrul as they are in Delhi and Amsterdam. All these social changes are producing a new order of elite stratification that is reworking not only the relations within traditional tribal hierarchies but also class, youth, and gender relations. Many such women were linked with national and international networks and exposed to ideas of imagining more equal modes of citizenship (Aier, 2017). Naga women were questioning their subordinate status and exclusion in Naga tribal society. A study on “Enquiry into the Status of Naga Women” (NEN, 2016) revealed gender discriminatory practices prevail in education, family and marriage laws, land rights, access to justice, and citizenship rights. Local patriarchies continued to justify gender inequality in the name of Naga customary practices, constitutionally guaranteed in Article 371A applicable to Nagaland state (Manchanda & Kakran, 2017). Naga scholar Anungla Aier’s writings reveal how traditional Naga tribal institutions perpetuate gender inequality by excluding women from decision-­ making and representation, and thus, effectively, from indigenous notions of citizenship (2017). The new generation of educated and professional tribal women who were questioning hegemonic norms were expanding the agenda of the Naga Mothers, from subsuming gender consciousness in an identity-based mobilization to pushing for inclusion and representation that challenged customary practices. Here a caveat should be added. As Samir Das’ perceptive study, “Ethnicity and Democracy Meet

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When Mothers Protest,” suggests, these unsettling and destabilizing aspirations should not be confused with suggesting that the women were desirous of pursuing an autonomous woman’s agenda, unaffected by indigenous, ethnic, or nationalist ones (Das, 2008). As feminist scholar Cynthia Cockburn reminds us, “we are always not just women but a woman who has to deal one way or another with “being” a Serb, an English woman, or an Indian” (Cockburn, 2008). It was a reminder of Judith Butler’s analytical framing of fluid identities. However, the patriarchal backlash against Naga Mothers assertion for inclusion as political subjects raised uneasy questions about ethno-nationalist conflicts instrumentalizing political motherhood and squeezing the space for a transformative politics (Nongbri, 2011). Arguably in a logical inter-generational transition, the Naga Mothers were seeking to translate the social agency garnered through de-politicized motherhood politics in the informal sphere of civil society activism into political voice in the formal structures of representative politics. But this involved nothing less than challenging gender apartheid in indigenous and modern structures of decision-making. Naga women, as elsewhere in Northeastern tribal states, are absent from indigenous and modern structures of representation, including village and district councils, the Nagaland state assembly, and the national parliament. According to the North East Network study on the status of Naga women, “In local politics, family honor and male authority intersect, so as to deny local women leaders support from other women and their own families” (NEN, 2016: 135). The NMA-led Joint Women’s Committee claimed entitlement to gender quotas in local urban bodies. Although India’s revolution in local self-government was not extended to tribal areas that had their own self-governing village institutions, such as Nagaland, gender quotas for women were extended to non-customary urban local bodies by law in 2006. So fierce was the opposition of indigenous authorities to the women’s quota that the government indefinitely postponed the urban local bodies (ULB) elections  across Nagaland. The law was hotly contested in the Nagaland state assembly and India’s superior courts as a violation of Naga customary laws constitutionally guaranteed under Art. 371 A. The gravitas of the women’s challenge is evinced by the fact that Art 371A has been invoked only once before, when Nagaland claimed special rights to control its oil resources, overriding the Union government’s claims. Lost in the emotionalism of the discourse of Naga customary identity at risk was the discriminatory instrumentalization of Art 371A. Dolly Kikon was blunt, Article 371 (A) is breached also in the ongoing coal mining operations and the oil exploration negotiations in Nagaland. Naga politicians, landowners, village councils, and business families have all interpreted the provision for their benefit to mine for minerals and not be held accountable for the environmental degradation. But it is only when women may enter the decision-making process (and potentially reverse such policies) that Article 371 suddenly becomes sacrosanct (Kikon, 2017).

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Directed by the Supreme Court, the Nagaland government announced elections in February 2017, and protests erupted. Volunteer mobs enforced a month-long bandh, vandalizing and looting property and setting ablaze vehicles in the commercial capital of Dimapur. In the frenzy, three people were killed. Women candidates were threatened with excommunication from their tribes and villages. Death threats were issued against NMA leaders. Under pressure from the tribal bodies, the Mothers Associations of the powerful and “progressive” Angami, Sumi, Chakesang, and Lotha tribes dissociated themselves from the NMA. It was NMA’s lowest moment. In the months since the setback to women’s political agency for citizenship, a bruised NMA has recouped its core strength and its moral authority as peacekeepers. Has the destabilizing gender transgression involved in the NMA-led transition to challenge indigenous patriarchal norms of exclusion been co-opted? Has the traditional social-cultural framework reasserted its hegemony to enable a future motherhood politics of resistance within gender-appropriate norms? The articulation of NMA’s agency post backlash, during the 2019 peace crisis, showed that the Mothers had not lost their initiative and their moral authority. It was all the more significant because it occurred at a time when Naga apex bodies such as the Ho Ho had fallen prey to festering intertribalism, which not only divided the Naga national movement but also Naga civil society. The crisis that threatened to derail the peace process was precipitated by the actions of the government’s special interlocutor, the Governor of Nagaland. He had revived and propped up pliant Naga National Political Groups (NNPGs) and pitted them against the dominant NSCN-IM group, the sole signatory to the political Indo-Naga Framework Agreement. The Indian authorities threatened to conclude a compromised political agreement on the government’s terms, with or without the I-M, with the subordinate and yielding NNPGs. Naga Mothers boldly upbraided the Governor for playing “divisive politics and of selectively excluding in consultative meetings with primary stakeholders’ influential civil society bodies that have played a crucial role in the peace process for decades” [NMA Statement 2019]. Crucially, they backed the position of the I-M’s collective leadership to have its own constitution and flag. Also, the NMA, along with the churches, appealed for unity and the inclusion of all stakeholders. It was noticeable that NMA was joined by the leaders of the “alienated” Angami, Ao, and Sema tribes in public platforms and statements then and during the Oting massacre crisis. Is the Naga Mothers’ story a cautionary tale of the limits of political motherhood in reaching toward a transformative politics of equality and inclusion? Perhaps the last word should be that of the sage but cautious Neidonuo Angami, former President of NMA: “There was a time when women were not even allowed to participate in the public sphere, but I believe things are slowly changing for the better.” We will surely take part in politics and other decision-making bodies too. “It is a matter of time” (Saikia, 2019).

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Manipur’s Meira Paibis and the Radicalized Nude Mothers Protest The signature protest technique of the Manipur mothers group is the torch-rally, in which hundreds of women from local neighborhood cells carrying flaming torches march peacefully from four corners in response to the latest crisis (Yumnam, n.d.; Nung, 2014). In these 40 years of struggle against the oppressive security apparatus of the Indian state and neo-colonialism (Hans, 2016), the torch bearers, or the Meira Paibis, have been at the forefront of the campaign to withdraw the draconian AFSPA. Extended to Manipur in 1980, AFSPA’s exceptional “shoot on suspicion” license and its related culture of impunity have produced egregious human rights violations, including mass extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture, and rape. Manipur’s secessionist struggles of 34 armed groups and the Indian state’s militarized country insurgency have brutalized Manipur society. Meira Paibis, or the mothers’ group, belongs to the Metei ethnic community, the dominant ethnicity of the Manipur valley; the hills are the homelands of the Naga and Kuki tribes. Social legitimacy for the Meira Paibis’ protests is rooted in the historical Nupi lan or women’s wars; in 1904 thousands of women revolted against the injustice of forced labor enforced as collective punishment, and again in 1939 mobilised in protest at the politics of rice monopoly women. In the forefront of the protests were women traders of the Khwairamband Market, better known as the Ima Keithel or women’s market (Yumnam, n.d.). The Ima keithel, in the capital city Imphal, became the central site from which public protests are launched. The relative economic autonomy of the Metei mothers could have enabled the women’s greater mobility and activism, but within limits and diminishingly with the capitalization of traditional economic relations. The Meira Paibi movement’s politicized modes of everyday resistance drew strength from the community’s rituals, customs, and norms (both religious and secular). The moral logic and thereby social acceptability of their peace-work was anchored in their motherhood identity and purportedly maternal dispositions to protect and nurture. Following the imposition of AFSPA, regularly occurring crisis situations resulted from militarized security forces firing off bursts of automatic weapons after guerrilla action and killing civilians, including women and children. Such situations galvanized local Meira Paibi groups to protest against human rights violations. There were the familiar modes of Mothers’ protests: maintaining nightly vigils and sounding the alert at combing raids to summon masses of mothers to bodily block the security forces, mediating the release of “our boys” and of locals kidnapped by armed groups. Significantly, the Meira Paibis politicized religious rituals of “fasting,” abstaining from food and observing vows of silence, innovating them into collective public and ceremonial performances of ritualistic “fasting” as a mode of resistance. The Mothers would congregate on a public platform for a sit-in of grieving mothers performing mass mourning prayers while wearing their customary beige phanek (sarong) and white shawl. Their massive torch rallies

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against military atrocities under AFSPA symbolized the solidarity of the Manipur public against state oppression. Meira Paibi’s social agency arises from their activist experiences in the local, neighborhood-centered leikai groups. The movement is loosely divided into three groups: at the state, district, and leikai level. Meira Paibis’ loose organizational structure prompted Manipur’s influential journalist Pradeep Phanjoubam to disparage the capacity of the movement to create a collective agency for women to carve out spaces for expanding women’s political rights as citizens. Writing a decade and half ago, he observed, “[Meira Paibis] for all their energy, talent and enterprise are too raw to grow beyond a grassroots organization” (2008). Latter day Manipur scholar, Basanti Devi on the basis of ethnographic work, argued that the political motherhood in the Meira Paibi movement should be seen as “a constantly evolving, dynamic category, in order to save it from being stuck in old patriarchal mores or of being co-opted by the state and to be an active force in the region’s politics” (2017). As corroboration, the author drew attention to members of two key organizations associated with the Meira Paibi movement, the PLMPAM and Nupi Samaj, which projected themselves as political activists rather than social reformers and professed to safeguard the community against state oppression (Devi, 2017). Ratika Yumman claims that the hybrid structure of the movement—loose and hierarchical—has made for its success. Bezbaruah argues that its local subgroups give it its grassroots base, while institutionalizing the collective action gives it more credibility in terms of negotiating with power authorities such as the state (2018). Whereas the Meira Paibis are in the forefront of exercising moral authority against state repression, they have held back on confronting violations by their own ethnic groups. Even violence against women (VAW) is subsumed in the mothers’ being embedded in an ethno-national movement and engaged with only at the private familial level (Nepram, 2011). This may account for why Manipur’s women’s groups remain distant or autonomous from the mother groups associated with other ethno-nationalist movements. Meria Paibis, through gender-appropriate norms and modes of motherhood politics, created a space for consolidating their everyday resistance. The young, unmarried Irom Sharmila Chanu’s complementary performance of the political “fast onto death” is also framed within extant gender tropes. Irom Sharmila was so emotionally devastated at the news of civilian killings in the 2001 Malom massacre that she vowed to sacrifice herself unless AFSPA was repealed (Mehrotra, 2009). When Sharmila started her fast, the senior members of the Meira Paibis were there supporting her and calling her their daughter. The mothers opposed the government for arresting her for attempting to commit suicide and for criminalizing her, seeking to undermine her ideas and political declaration (Mehrotra, 2009). Kept in custody, she was force-fed for 16 years. During the ritual of her annual release and re-arrest, the mothers would gather around her and buttress her resolve. The “Iron Lady of Manipur” became an icon in Manipur and globally, although the Indian government remained indifferent and refused to talk to her. Sharmila became trapped in her demi-goddess status.

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Sharmila’s decision to end her indefinite fast, to marry, and to take an overtly political path of resistance by contesting electoral politics prompted an assault of vociferous accusations of betrayal of the struggle of the Manipuri people. When she broke her fast after 16 years of sacrifice, the Meira Paibis abandoned her, and the Manipur society that had eulogized her ostracized her. Panchali Ray, in a perceptive study of gendered transgressions in the women’s protests in Manipur, writes: During her fast, Sharmila transcended the flesh and blood body and became synonymous with the abstract body of Manipur. Her iconization was premised on the pre-sexual, celibate ascetic model of political martyrdom. These factors contributed to her exalted status. For her to return to the social  – to food, marriage, and elections  – destroys the basis of her iconization. (Ray, 2018)

The afterlife of a demi-god, once off the pedestal is a difficult one, banishment voluntary or enforced from Manipur and a barrage of “negativity” and condemnation. The rejection was sealed when the disillusioned Sharmila garnered less than a handful of votes in the state assembly election she contested. Evidently, there could be no transition from her iconic political status as a symbol of feminine sacrifice for suffering Manipur to realizing agency for change as a woman-citizen in electoral politics. Sharmila in conversations with Panchali Ray, says with an element of suppressed bitterness, “They wanted me to remain as the symbol of resistance, not speaking or thinking, but just fasting”. The exalted status of the “fasting” Sharmila as too that of the Meira Paibis plays within hegemonic gendered norms and modes of political motherhood. Moreover, as several feminist scholars have argued veneration for the Meira Paibis (as indeed that of the virginal Sharmila) depends on the asexual, maternal body of the mother (Ahall, 2012; Misri, 2011). The Mothers of the movement are middle-aged past child rearing and child caring. It is only married middle-aged mothers who enjoy relative freedom of mobility and collective activism in Manipur’s conservative society. The emphasis on the traditional norms and practices that constitute acceptable (asexual) agency serves to highlight the dramatic rupture with modes of appropriate gendered agency as embodied in the spectacular performance of the Mothers naked protest. I am deeply indebted to the studies of Ray and Misri’s writings which analyze the significance of the naked female body in Indian discourses, that is beyond the normative discourse of feminine victimhood and shame, guile and seduction to one of performing resistance. In November 2004, in front of the headquarters of the Assam Rifles, the historic Kangla Fort in Imphal, 12 Meira Paibis stripped naked, and held up banners reading “Indian army rape us/Indian army take our flesh” (Misri, 2011; Bora, 2010). In full public view with the media at hand, the Mothers embodied a language of pain, rage and resistance against sexual violence and army atrocities in a mode of collective agency. The performance of the naked protest was radically discordant with the Meira Paibis gender appropriate practices of everyday resistance. The provocation was the brutalization, rape, and murder of Thangjam Manorama Devi (32), who was accused of terrorism by the Assam Rifles forces. Manorma Devi was beaten and dragged from her home with her family members pleading against

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her being taken away so late in the night, without any accompanying women constables. Hours later her body was found tortured and broken and with multiple gunshot wounds in the genital area. The impossibility of legal justice from state protectors turned perpetrators, precipitated a more radical mode of protest against the widespread practice of sexualized torture and rape by the security forces, and with impunity. Nudity functions as a moral claim by women that they should be protected by the armed forces, but in fact are not, as the Manorama case makes evident observes Papori Bora (2010). Here the particular form of protest taunted the claims of security forces as paternalistic and benevolent protectors; instead it reinforced the armed forces as violators-perpetrators and, by extension, the Indian state’s “occupation” of Manipur as violating. Media headlines constructed the exceptional protest, as an act of desperation beyond tolerance by helpless women. “Look what armed forces have reduced Manipuri women to!” screamed headlines. This reification of female victimhood is a familiar narrative in trying to explain or appropriate women’s agency at a moment when it seems to have detached itself from gendered social relations Accordingly, the Mothers too identified themselves as Manorma’s s mother in explaining their mobilization and politicization. Manorama is our daughter, she is me. If my daughter lies naked, how can I be clothed? When Manipur has been stripped of its clothes, how can we as mothers be quiet? When your daughter has been stripped naked, how can you be clothed? I knew that we had to do this – for my daughter, for our children. (Quoted by Ray, 2018)

Significantly, at the time of the protest, there was no visual reminder that emphasized motherhood; the women presented themselves to the Indian army as sexualized bodies, not grieving mothers. In understanding the multiple meanings of the Mothers performance of political motherhood in the form of the naked protest it is helpful to recall Judith Butler statement that “identity is performatively constituted by the very expressions that are said to be its results” (Butler, 1999). In all likelihood, beyond conscious intention, the singular moment of protest opened up the possibility of gender identities and normative subjectivities being constituted differently and the possibilities of a different kind of political agency. Roma Dey suggests that “the naked protest by the Meira Paibis brings to focus counter narratives that destabilize hegemonic notions of womanhood and citizenship, creating spaces for women to negotiate their rights as citizens” (2017). The act of voluntarily and publicly disrobing by protesting mothers destabilizes all imaginations that are associated with motherhood and with modes of feminine resistance. These “respectable” mothers were radically flouting hegemonic gendered tropes of political motherhood. “Motherhood is vulnerable to the threat of the ‘other,’ but never sexually active, but rather tamed and asexual,” as Ray iterated. Mothers in the nude protest presented themselves as sexualized bodies to the Indian army and not as the maternal, asexual, grieving mother. It was a displacement of the normative role of the mother or even the ways in which an ideal Metei woman can protest.

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The dramatic shock of the singular performance was amplified by the media locally, nationally, and globally. The mothers’ protest forced a harried government to act. The Assam Rifles evacuated Kangla Fort and restored the seat of Manipur’s historic monarchy to the people; an AFSPA review committee was set up; and AFSPA was withdrawn from the valley districts. AFSPA still has not been withdrawn from the Northeast, and the Reddy review committee’s recommendations to repeal AFSPA are buried. What social impact did this single moment of displacement and destabilization have? Ray reads the naked protest as a moment of slippage, and as the crisis subsided, hegemonic social and cultural norms reasserted themselves and enabled a future politics of resistance around motherhood politics. It is noticeable that Apunba Lup, the Meitei civil society body set up after the Mothers Naked protest, was invariably an all-male group when it went in for negotiations with the government. Writing soon after the performance of the naked protest, Manipur women’s activist Vijayalaxmi Brara stated, “Today the women’s collectives are expected to remain in the background, ready to strike the moment the situation demands, and then retreat gracefully when the results present themselves” (2010).

Conclusion Seemingly then, these moments of gendered transgression in the construction of political motherhood in Nagaland and Manipur, which could have opened up the possibility of new subjectivities, were pushed back or co-opted, and the social relations that govern ethnic patriarchy were reasserted. But then, these are unfinished performances and incomplete narratives. What is apparent is that the NMA is not letting the indigenous patriarchal backlash define them, but their continued assertive agency. The journey for re-imagining women as rights-bearing subjects is a long, ongoing one.

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Misri, D. (2011). ‘Are you a man?’ Performing naked protests in India. Signs, 36(3), 603–625. Nepram, B. (2011). The Armed Forces Special Powers Act in relation to women and gender in peace processes. Centre for Humanitarian Dialogues (CHD). http://peacetalks.hdcentre.org/2011/04/ the-­armed-­forces-­special-­powers-­act-­in-­relation-­to-­women-­and-­gender-­in-­peace-­processes Nongbri, T. (2011). Exclusionary practices: The marginalisation of women in state and public policies. Indian Institute of Advances Studies (IIAS) Review, 18(2), 38–47. North East Network. (2016). Enquiry into status of women in Nagaland. NEN. www.northeastnetwork.org/wp-­content/uploads/2016/10/Enquiry-­into-­the-­status-­of-­women-­in-­Nagaland.pdf Nung, P. (2014, February). Warfare or welfare: Women in the shadows of Armed Forces Special Powers Act 1958. Paper presented at XIV national conference on equality, pluralism and the state, Guwahati Indian Association of Women’s Studies. Oinam, B., & Sadokpam, D. (Eds.). (2018). Northeast India: A reader. Routledge. Phanjoubam, P. (2008). Challenges before the Women’s movement in Manipur. In A.  Dutta & R.  Bhuyan (Eds.), Women and peace: Chapters from the Northeast (pp.  99–108). Akansha Publishing House. Ravi, R. (2014, January 23). Nagaland: Descent into chaos. The Hindu. www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/nagaland-­descent-­into-­chaos/article5606432.ece Ray, P. (2018). Political motherhood and a spectacular resistance: (Re) examining the Kangla Fort Protest, Manipur. In P. Ray (Ed.), Women speak nation (pp. 131–149). Routledge. Ruddick, S. (1989). Maternal thinking: Toward a politics of peace. Beacon. Saikia, A. (2019, November 26). The mothers of Nagaland are taking it upon themselves to keep the peace. scroll.in. https://scroll.in/article/943445/ the-­mothers-­of-­nagaland-­are-­taking-­it-­upon-­themselves-­to-­keep-­the-­peace-­yet-­again Sjoberg, L., & Gentry, C. (2007). Mothers, monsters, whores: Women’s violence in global politics. Zed. Skjelsboek, I., & Smith, D. (Eds.). (2001). Gender, peace and conflict. PRIO/Sage. Sridhar, S. A., & Khunenchu, M. (2017). Gender and land relations in Nagaland. In P. Chowdhury (Ed.), Understanding women’s land rights. Sage. Wouters, J. (2018). In the shadows of Naga insurgency: Tribes, state, and violence in northeast. OUP. Yumnam, R. (n.d.). Women’s protest mobilisations in Manipur: A feminist lens. https://www. academia.edu/27629019/Womens_Protest_Mobilisations_in_Manipur_A_View_through_a_ Feminist_Lens

Motherhood and the Combatant Role: A Case Study of Women Politically Motivated Prisoners in the Context of Violent Conflict Fidelma Ashe and Christina Taylor

Abstract  The figure of the woman combatant has become associated with the transgression of traditional gender norms. By entering the theatre of violence, an arena normatively framed as male, the woman combatant subverts the bifurcation of gender roles and the gendered public/private divide. However, while aspects of the combatant role may be liberating for groups of women and disrupt traditional gender roles, combatant women do not transcend gender norms and ideologies. While non-state armed groups tend to recruit younger women, and some women choose or are forced to forego motherhood, this does not mean that women invariably swap their roles as mothers for that of the combatant role. Many women combatants worldwide are also mothers. During the conflict and the conflict transformational period, women must negotiate the demands of both roles. The effects and tensions of these conflicting roles remain under-theorised in the peace and conflict literature despite feminism’s growing interest in women combatants’ experiences during conflict and conflict transformation. Utilising the case study of the Northern Ireland (NI) conflict, this chapter draws on interviews conducted with women combatants who were imprisoned between 1971 and 1998. Additionally, it draws on publicly available archived testimony that focuses on combatants’ experiences of imprisonment during this period. Weaving together women combatants’ stories of imprisonment, this chapter explores how motherhood impacts women’s prison and post-prison experiences. It concludes by highlighting the insights that this case study offers to international studies on women combatants.

F. Ashe (*) · C. Taylor Ulster University, Belfast, UK e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Ü. Arıboğan, H. Khelghat-Doost (eds.), Constructing Motherhood Identity Against Political Violence, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36538-6_6

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Introduction Combatant women have been viewed as disturbing the traditional gender order in conflict-affected societies. Her subversion of gender stereotypes means that she transgresses the norms of femininity. Through involvement in militarism, she simultaneously enters the public sphere and the sphere of violent conflict; arenas historically associated with the agency and capacities of men. However, as international studies have shown, the combatant woman subverts the association of femininity with non-violent behaviour and crosses the boundary from private to public but she remains located within broader regimes of gender power. While combatant women may challenge aspects of the traditional gender binary, they rarely transcend it. Membership of armed groups does not mean that gender hierarchies inside or outside those groups simply fade away. Women are still embedded in scripts of femininity. While women may reject these scripts, groups within their societies may continue to impose them. Combatant women must often negotiate aspects of traditional femininity within shifting and complex fields of gender power. Thus, while the figure of the combatant woman may challenge gender stereotypes, the combatant mother reveals that caring roles are not necessarily jettisoned or transcended when women become combatants. In effect, the woman combatant does not transcend the gender order; rather as her agency continues to be located within it. Nor does she transcend the traditional role of wife and daughter; rather, these are roles that she must often negotiate. Motherhood too remains or becomes part of the complex lived reality for many women directly involved in violent conflicts. Few combatant women swap their role as mothers for their role as combatants. During the conflict and the conflict transformational period, many women must navigate the ideals and demands of both identities. The effects and tensions of these often-conflicting roles remain undertheorised in the peace and conflict literature despite feminism’s growing interest in women combatants’ experiences during conflict and conflict transformation. Utilising the case study of the Northern Ireland (NI) conflict, this chapter draws on interviews conducted with women combatants who were imprisoned between 1971 and 1998.1 Additionally, it draws on publicly available archived testimony that focuses on combatant women’s experiences of imprisonment during this period.2

 Ten interviews were conducted by Taylor as part of a broader research project which examines the reintegration experiences of women politically motivated ex-prisoners in NI. The interviews were conducted in person at various locations in Ireland and NI between June and August 2018. To preserve the anonymity of the women interviewed, the methodological approach did not assign specific numbers to the testimonies of individual interviewees. The approach was an important identification protection measure for those who agreed to be interviewed. Interviews within this collection are marked as ‘Interview, 2018’. 2  Archival interviews were accessed by the Taylor both in publicly available online material and through direct archival access in both the Prison Memory Archive (https://www.prisonsmemoryarchive.com/) and Dúchas Archive (http://www.duchasarchive.com) in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Data obtained from these archival sources are labelled accordingly within this chapter. 1

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Weaving together women combatants’ stories of imprisonment this chapter explores how motherhood impacted on women’s prison and post-prison experiences. It concludes by highlighting the insights this case study offers to international studies of women combatants.

Women Combatants and the Politics of Transgression War has always been constituted primarily as a male affair, because we are told that men are natural combatants. ‘There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs’ (Martin, 2000: 270). Some have argued that the ‘beast stirs’ because humans have a violent brain. However, as Rollins (2021) notes the question of the violent human brain has always been a ‘racialised’ and ‘gendered question’. Rollins’s (2021) study of modern neuroscience illustrates how even scientifically advanced examinations of the human brain sit within broader gendered and racialised intellectual histories. Similar to most biological explanations of human violence, aggression is primarily associated with men. Biological explanations of men’s violence still influence cultural understanding of gender identities. Feminist research has attempted to map the very complex and deeply embedded social practices, norms, and ideologies that give rise to men’s violence (Connell, 1995). According to an expanding body of work, masculinities and femininities are social creations that give rise to specific gender norms and behaviours. The normative traits of masculinities are therefore socially ascribed to men through complex webs of power, and the social scripts of gender that shape gender relationships during times of peace and war, and conflict. The scripts of masculinities include traits and behaviours associated with ‘real men’. These traits include, but are not limited to, independence, toughness, bravery, and a capacity for violence. Theorists, such as Connell (1995), have argued that these traits are central aspects of hegemonic or dominant masculinities; a normative model of masculinity that all men are encouraged to achieve. This claim does not suggest that models of normative masculinities are universal or static, but that certain traits in men have been historically valorised. Normative models of masculinities can easily map to the combatant’s role. Nagel’s (1998) study of nationalism illustrates well how the norms of dominant masculinities fuse with the norms of militarised masculinities. Her analysis suggests that involvement in militarism is a central aspect of normative masculinity. She (1998: 252–2) notes that, terms like honour, patriotism, cowardice, bravery and duty are hard to distinguish as either nationalistic or masculinist, since they seem so thoroughly tied both to the nation and to manliness. My point here is that the ‘microculture’ of masculinity in everyday life articulates very well with the demands of nationalism, particularly its militaristic side.

In contrast, women have been constituted as naturally weak and passive, and as such are unsuited to militarised roles. McClintock (1995) notes that while men are the

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active agents within nations, women are the passive symbols of the nation in the form of the mother of the nation. Moreover, women’s roles during conflict have been shaped by traditional constructions of feminine traits and capacities. In their classic work, Yuval-Davis and Anthias (1989) established how nationalist groups utilise women’s traditional roles in serving the national project. They note how women serve as biological reproducers of the national group, socialising them into a nationalist culture. They also represent the values of national groups, which is why in some nationalist societies, women’s sexuality is highly regulated. In different ways, men and women’s actual and perceived bodily capacities are utilised to support the nationalist project. Men are used as instruments of violence and women are used as instruments to reproduce the nation biologically and culturally. The woman combatant disturbs this gender order, and it is often the disorder of conflict that facilitates women’s adoption of the combatant role. As normal ways of life become increasingly disrupted, women can be drawn into the public sphere to support militarism in various ways. The female combatant involved in physical force violence clearly challenges the gender binaries of both peace and wartime. She subverts the notion that violence is the preservation of men. Combatant women demonstrate women’s capacity for violence, ripping apart stereotypical notions about women’s innate orientation towards giving life as opposed to taking life. While the women combatant defies essentialism, she remains a point of debate inside and outside of feminism. ‘While the participation and motivations of male combatants are generally taken at face value, women acting within this domain are often portrayed as victims of circumstance, coerced by the men around them, or psychologically abnormal’ (Vogel et al., 2014, 92–3). While women enter the arena of violence, their autonomous decision-making has been placed in question recycling notions of male agency and female passivity. Others have noted how war can be transformative for women by opening up learning and knowledge (Punam, 2016). As above, a further issue revolves around where the bulk of women’s activities in non-state armed groups are located. Studies have found that many women take up auxiliary rather than frontline roles in conflict-affected societies. Much work has been done cross-culturally to disentangle the different types of agencies that characterise women members of militarised groups (Coomaraswamy, 1997). Women’s experience as combatants is complex. What seems clear is that when we investigate the agency of combatant women, it is important that their voices are included in the analysis. This is especially so when we investigate their complex negotiation of motherhood. While some armed groups have actively sought to recruit women who are not mothers, women combatants throughout the world and in NI have been mothers. The combatant mother holding a rifle in on one arm and a baby on the other is a powerful symbol of the nationalist groups intent to defend itself from the enemy. Yet beyond her symbolic function there has been insufficient engagement with how actual women negotiate these roles. The next section explores the role of women in NI in militarised groups and the general contours of that conflict. An analysis of how combatant mothers in the region negotiated their complex roles follows.

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Women Combatants and the NI Conflict The NI conflict has a long history (McGarry & O’Leary, 1995). A key moment was the partitioning of the island of Ireland into two jurisdictions. Since partition NI has remained part of the United Kingdom and what was originally the Irish free state later the Republic of Ireland. The North was populated by a Protestant, pro-British majority that wanted to retain the union with the United Kingdom, and a minority Irish nationalist/republican and Catholic community. A deterioration in community relations meant that by 1969 conflict had broken out between non-state armed group. The Irish republican army fought for a unified Irish state and against British rule in Northern Ireland, while non-state unionist/loyalist3 armed groups emerged that identified as British. State forces were also actors in the conflict. There has been disagreement as to the nature of the NI conflict, with scholars defining it as either an anti-colonial struggle, an insurgency, a low-intensity conflict, or civil war. What is not debated is that between 1968 and 1998 when a peace agreement was reached 3600 people were killed and more than 30,000 more were wounded (Cain Web Service, 2022). At the time of the outbreak of the conflict NI was deeply conservative. Gender roles were rigidly defined and both churches played a significant role in social and political life (Ashe, 2019). As the conflict spilled over into the private sphere of life, women were increasingly affected by it. Militarised raids on houses, insecurity, riots, and cross-community violence at the local level affected normal family life (Aretxaga, 1997). Women joined the civil rights and peace movements. Other groups of women argued that peace could only be achieved if it was underpinned by justice for the Irish nationalist/republican community. Irish nationalist/ republican women played roles at all levels in these groups, ranging from ancillary roles to direct involvement in the activities of armed groups (Aretxaga, 1997). As the conflict operated at the street level, the community was marshalled into a range of roles. For example, women often kept safe houses for combatants, and moved weapons (Aretxaga, 1997). Similar activities were taken up by loyalist women (McEvoy, 2009). Unionist and loyalist women joined state security forces, although unlike their male counterparts, they were not permitted to carry guns until 1993. While there have been fewer studies of unionist/loyalist women (McEvoy, 2009), we know there were active women’s units within the Ulster Defence Association, a loyalist armed group and some loyalist women combatants were imprisoned (McEvoy, 2009). Much more is known about nationalist/republican women who took up militarised roles, with unionist/loyalist women combatants remaining a harder group for researchers to reach. Yet, women combatants in Irish nationalist/republican armed groups were also small in number, but unlike loyalist women, they had enough numbers to set up formal organisations in the prisons (Wahidin, 2016). The armed groups that these

 Loyalist is a term associated with working class unionists.

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women joined were male-dominated. It is estimated that women constituted 1 in 20 of those imprisoned for politically motivated activities (Corcoran, 2006). There have been a number of academic studies on the role of nationalist/republican women who played combatant roles. The gender dynamics that surround their roles have been documented and explored (Corcoran, 2006; Gilmartin, 2018; McEvoy, 2009; O’Keefe, 2013; Wahidin, 2016). Our focus is on the negotiation of motherhood within the wider gender dynamics of the conflict and the societal scripts of femininity.

Combatant Mothers The analysis below is based on archival data accessed through the Prison Memory Archive and includes the testimony of nine Irish republican women politically motivated prisoners and one loyalist woman who was a politically motivated prisoner (Taylor, forthcoming). Seven further interviews with Irish republican women ex-politically motivated prisoners were accessed through the Dúchas archive and a second interview with the same loyalist woman was also accessed from this archive (Taylor, forthcoming). Ten qualitative interviews were conducted with ex-­ politically motivated women prisoners between June 2018 and August 2018 (Taylor, forthcoming). All of the women interviewed were imprisoned in NI. Some women in the sample lived with a partner and/or child before imprisonment. Seven women in the sample were mothers at the time of imprisonment. Across the data collected and the archival sources accessed, the theme of motherhood was the single most discussed issue, being raised across each interview, regardless of whether the woman herself was a mother during the time of imprisonment  (Taylor, forthcoming). Participants spoke of their personal experiences as mothers, and the experiences of other mothers they had witnessed during their imprisonment. They expressed concern for the lack of focus on and understanding of the varied experiences of women (ex)-prisoners in general, and in particular, the dearth of focus on the complexities of motherhood and imprisonment. Several participants expressed an awareness of the extant research on women within the prisons in NI, but also emphasised the limitations of these studies, which have highlighted and interrogated other aspects of the prison experience such as the no-wash protest in Armagh prison by republican women prisoners between 1980 and 1981 (Loughran, 1986; O’Keefe, 2006) and on the strip searching of republican women prisoners viewed as a form of sexually based punishment (Swaine, 2018: 71–75). The intricacies of the experiences of motherhood in prison have yet to receive sufficient focus. One woman, who herself gave birth in Armagh prison stated: ‘You have to remember there were a lot of girls in there that had babies and kids at home… and they were feeling every bit as bad as me, some of them even worse…’ (Prison Memory Archive, 2006). Another woman, imprisoned later in the conflict in Maghaberry prison expressed frustration at the lack of awareness of women imprisoned during the later years of the three decades of conflict, who were rarely

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mentioned in the analysis of women’s experiences asking: ‘Do you know how many women were in there with children?’ (Interviewee, 2018). Certainly, within the wider ethno-nationalist context women’s experiences as mothers in the prison would be viewed as more apolitical in contrast to prison protests and strip searches by what is effectively an arm of the state. However, we know that mothering holds a central place in ethno-nationalist societies. From women’s passive symbolisation as mother of the nation to the prescriptions of national motherhood, women’s biological role serves the political interests of state-sponsored nationalism and non-state-sponsored nationalism. Politically motivated women prisoners in NI located within an ethno-nationalist culture had to negotiate both the ideological and affective aspects of motherhood. One woman described what she saw as gender-specific attacks she experienced as a mother when she was arrested: ‘I remember…[the prison officers] said look at you, the state of you. You should be ashamed of yourself. A mother…and this is the stuff…[of] personal attack…’ (Interviewee, 2018). The respondent further expressed that she did not think that men would have been subjected to similar gender-based criticism: Did that happen to men? Would men have took it that way? No, they wouldn’t have. Because they knew their kids were okay. Do you know what I mean? With me they were saying your kids are going into care, and this, that, and the other. That is emotional abuse while you are in interrogation, and they are using that as a form of weakness to get you and then you go to jail. And maybe Social Services, if you tell Social Services you are struggling, like my [mother] went to the Social Services and says, we are struggling. The kids would have been took off her and then I wouldn’t have had that connection with them…You just had to battle on and that was it.

Other women described what they saw as particular cruelty and abuse towards women from prison authorities during childbirth. For example, one woman recalled being handcuffed to the bed while giving birth, and afterwards being subjected to verbal sectarian abuse regarding her baby (Dúchas Archive, 2014). Another woman described returning to prison immediately after a painful delivery  – she required stitches, and forceps were used. These experiences are unique to women highlighting the physical and emotional impacts of the imprisoned mother (Prison Memory Archive, 2006).

Separation and the Maternal Role When women entered the prison traditional motherhood was disrupted. For the incarcerated combatant mothers who provided testimony of their time in prison, there were three options for the care of their children. Children could be placed in foster care or be adopted; children under one year old could stay in prison with the mother for a year, or the children could be placed in the care of a relative. Most of the mothers chose the last option. At that time, NI had particularly strong extended family structures. However, the ability of family members to care for children during a relative’s incarceration depended on their personal circumstance. In general,

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combatants in NI have been drawn from working-class communities with limited financial resources. The most preferred option, leaving children with families was not without difficulties for the women prisoners. Several respondents also highlighted the guilt they felt as a result of putting additional caring pressures on their families. One respondent, whose mother and sisters ‘cared for and fed’ her children spoke of the difficulties her family faced as a result: [Help] from the state, no, they actually created more hassle. The state caused hassle. There was the Prisoners Welfare who would have helped. They would have helped mummy, gave her about £20 a week to try and help me with my parcel. But no other additional help was given, even for transport for my kids to come and see me. No financial help while my kids were there. My mother nearly lost her job [because she had to take care of the children].

One interviewee within the Prison Memory Archive described her experience of giving birth while imprisoned and receiving news from the Prison Governor that her child would have to leave the prison after a short period of time. The respondent recalled ‘going down to the visiting room to hand out her son to [her] Dad’. Although she knew her child would be safe with her immediate family, she described the experience as ‘one of the hardest things I ever had to do’ commenting that: ‘you walked back up to the wing and it was if he [her baby son] was dead’ (Prison Memory Archive, 2006). Others who had children under one or who were pregnant at the time of incarceration faced the complex decision of whether to keep their babies in the prison. One interviewee (2018) made the decision to leave her newborn with relatives, ‘I made the choice that that I would not do that [bring her baby to live in the prison]…it was hard enough me being institutionalised’. Another woman described the devastation of the separation of mother and child. It is a struggle to be a mother in prison, because your instinct is to look after your child. But when you are caught up in the conflict because of everything that was happening…everybody was caught up in it [the conflict] because it was just horrific what was going on in the prison. For me, my six-year-old son, I knew would have been devastated, he was devastated…he used to come up and visit me and then want to go and see what my cell was like. It was really hard for him and hard for me in the sense that I knew that he wanted to come back with me, but that was just the way it was and we just had to deal with it (Interviewee, 2018).

There was little support for women undergoing the gendered experience of a mother separating from her children. One recalled: ‘So, during that time…I had no support from the outside for my children, no agencies helped my family, the rest of the children they were just took away and that was it’ (Interviewee, 2018). Another respondent, whose child described how she became very isolated after her child was taken away to live with family. She ‘didn’t mix well’ after that happened (Prison Memory Archive, 2006). Several respondents stated that they required medication to deal with the impact. The impacts of imprisonment for mothers and their children were often long-­ term. Specific interviewees described how the initial separation from children

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during incarceration deepened as time passed leading to feelings of losing the maternal role: I think that there is a load of things that impact on women. Some of the women who were in prison had wee young babies… I think it was a bit harder for them…Because the wee young babies were handed out to family. There are some girls who handed out…and who were on a protest for so many years, and then the children grew up with sisters, and then looked on the sister as a mummy and the after effect of all that was traumatic for them… Because you walk out of jail, and you are home with a baby. But your baby believes really psychological that this other person really is their mummy or their mother, so it is hard (Interviewee, 2018).

Another respondent (Interviewee, 2018) told the story of another woman prisoner whose life was irretrievably scarred by her experience as a mother and a prisoner: There is one mother in Derry who had a baby in Armagh jail, and she had the choice. If you had a baby, you could keep it for a year but because of the protest, she went on the protest because her conviction was so strong…That relationship has never mended. She did ten years in Armagh jail. So, when she got out her child was 10. Her child was calling her Aunty, Mummy and that is a life ruined… That women ended up getting released from Armagh jail because she had bulimia. She was down to about four and a half stone. So, she got released and ended up an alcoholic. There are so many women who have gone through absolutely tragic, horrible, times.

The interviewees who were mothers understood separation from their children as a uniquely gendered, devastating experience. Reflecting societal expectations about maternal and paternal roles, one interviewee commented that: ‘the men prisoners knew that there were women outside running their whole family, do you know where I am coming from?’ (Interviewee, 2018) with another stating: I mean men they sort of didn’t…maybe I am wrong for saying this, but I don’t think that men have the same bond with their children or have the same maternal responsibilities. It was a different set of rules for men and women, especially in those days. It was you know the mother did the cleaning, brought the kids to school, made the dinners. The men went to the pub with their mates and carried on the war (Interviewee, 2018).

Even if a father was living in the family home it did not mean that he would invariably take over the primary caretaker role. One respondent found herself in prison and her husband at home. He did not provide the primary care for the children. One interviewee explained that male combatants, which sometimes included male partners were focused on the conflict, while women felt deep tensions between their roles as mothers and combatants. If a female partner or wife was incarcerated one interviewee suggested that the male partner or husband would: Let his mummy look after the kids and dipped in and out. He wouldn’t have been as ‘hands on’ as a mother would have been, hands on to some extent but not to the same extent. We were multi-tasking, where they had a one-track mind [the conflict]. They had a one-track mind, that is what I do, but we were multi-tasking (Interviewee, 2018).

Women were vulnerable to judgement in a way men were not. ‘If they [prison authorities] had found anything vulnerable there at all, you know they used it, they

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would have used it’ (Interviewee, 2018) with another commenting ‘Yes, you were judged… of course you were judged’ (Interviewee, 2018). As time passed in the prison the emotional challenges of separation deepened. Some women did not recognise their own children: [I] didn’t recognise my child and that is when it was a reality check. I missed all the first footsteps, their first words, you know, first days at school and all their parents’ meetings… but it was like everything else you had to put it on the back boiler because you have two lives, okay, you have a life in the prison room and a life in the prison, you have two families, and you have to separate them (Interviewee, 2018).

Others found their children did not recognise them, one woman emotionally recalled that ‘She [interviewees’ daughter] wouldn’t come to me because she had bonded with the nurse [carer] and she didn’t recognise me’ (Interviewee, 2018) Another woman described a coping mechanism of detaching from her role as a mother while she was a prisoner ‘The years that I was in prison, I was not a mummy, I disengaged that I was a mother, these were just two children coming in to see me’ (Interviewee, 2018).

Conflict Transformation Serving a prison sentence is difficult for most people. For combatant mothers it created additional layers of pain and trauma. Again, most prisoners will require support to enable them to return to normal life. In the context of conflict transformation, there is usually attention paid to the reintegration of ex-combatants. In NI, there was very little support for ex-combatant women when they were released from prison. Both men and women who were released prior to or as part as the peace agreement in 1998 have claimed that they have been unsupported. Most respondents felt that there had been a failure from government to provide support for ex-prisoners (men and women) and that they [the co-guarantors of the peace agreement] had ‘reneged on their promise’ to provide reintegration support4 (Interviewee, 2018). For many ex-combatants during the conflict, the impact of imprisonment, residual criminalisation and a lack of centralised support has led to alcoholism, mental health issues and difficulties reintegrating with their families. In the absence of centralised support for reintegration, many ex-prisoners across factional groups set up support organisations. These organisations rely on ad-hoc funding and offer a range of services to ex-prisoners and their families including advocacy work, employment preparation and training and counselling services. Several respondents felt that men were more active in setting up and remaining  The Good Friday/Belfast Agreement 1998 stated that ‘both Governments continue to recognise the importance of measure to facilitate the reintegration of prisoners into the community by providing support both prior to and after release, including assistance directed towards availing of employment opportunities, re-training and/or re-skilling, and further education’. The commitment was further cemented in the 2005 with the St Andrew’s Agreement (The Agreement, 1998: 25). 4

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involved in self-help groups to address the needs of ex-politically motivated prisoners. Most respondents were aware of and typically spoke favourably of the support offered by ex-prisoner support organisations. However, several respondents voiced their concern about the default targeting and availing of these services by men for men: You do you have to go that extra mile. I don’t know what that extra mile is, but you have to be noticed or you are forgotten about. And it is not that I want to be remembered, but I’m just as good as you [an ex-prisoner man] and I have just got the capabilities that you have and I should be treated fairly. And I have seen too many people, men, coming through the system and being took by the hand…We are talking about hundreds and hundreds of men here, took by the hand.

One interviewee (2018) expressed her perception that women ex-prisoners faced a battle to access support and recognition within the reintegration experience. On release some women immediately wanted to return to their roles as combatants and supported ‘the struggle’ in various ways. Others were primarily concerned with housing, finances and rebuilding relationships with their children and families. They also tried to deal with the physical and psychological issues, social and structural barriers, and equality restrictions they faced after prison life. Finances were a particular concern for both men and women ex-politically motivated prisoners, and they were long-term (Jamieson et al., 2009). Several respondents drew on what they felt were additional barriers for women to re-enter combatant roles following release. In particular, one interviewee (2018) stated: I find that most men when they were released from prison went back into the republican movement. Again, men in my eyes have it easier… It is easier for men to walk back into the republican movement because the wife was there. The mother was there. They were running their household. They were running their lives. The women had a much harder job during the whole war time in the 70s and 80s…They [women] were keeping it going, so it was a much easier route for men.

Community jobs did open up for ex-combatants particularly in the area of peacebuilding. However, the combatant women interviewed felt that ex-politically motivated women prisoners were underrepresented in what have emerged as the main (paid) employment spaces for ex-prisoners including political and community roles as well as manual labour, taxiing and door supervision/security. Some respondents voiced that they did not feel that they were the ‘target’ for these roles and that the focus was on ‘getting the men jobs’. (Interviewee, 2018). Men’s experience of the conflict, their involvement in violence leading to a search for peaceful solutions, their community kudos and resistance in the prisons were framed as essential qualities for leading peacebuilding at community levels in ways that women’s experiences were not (Ashe, 2012). Some of the women interviewed felt that there was an expectation that they would return to maternal roles. Global research on women combatants has identified this expectation as a wider trend across a number of societies (McKay & Mazurana, 2004). There are several reasons for this occurrence. One is that women’s participation in conflict may become ‘invisible’ or minimised in the post-conflict phase, because traditional gender relations are reintroduced, and women are expected to revert to more traditional and less visible roles.

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Several women returned to caring for their children and later, their grandchildren. However, even when women returned to caring roles which restricted their earning capacity, there were many issues and stresses they continued to face, which impacted their capacity to engage in public sphere activities or indeed focus on their own reintegration needs more broadly. A particular focus for respondents centred on their relationship with their children after release. For many, the damage to relationships with their children was very difficult to repair. One imprisoned combatant mother described her relationship with her daughter after release. Relationships had been disrupted and there were often long-term consequences for mothers and their children. With me and her it is either really love, love, love or it is hate, hate, hate. It is a volatile relationship. I don’t think the bond was as strong as what it would have been had I not been away from her for that time because she was only three and she remembers sitting in a circle we called them in jail waiting to go in and then seeing her mummy behind a desk with her grandmother, and I am sure at three years of age she was wondering what was going on, you know (Interviewee, 2018).

One interviewee also described the intergeneration harm caused by her incarceration in the context of no support from either combatant mothers or their children. We are unique in a way that actually as a woman ex-prisoner, is much harder. It is even harder when you are a mother and you don’t have a bond with your children and it affects you for the rest of your life. I still to, this day, suffer. This is now continued on to my children, my two children have lost out on parents and I have tried to catch up for years, but you can’t do catch up and I have seen the trauma because one was old enough and she missed me, the other one didn’t have a clue, right, it was the norm for her to come to prison, whereas the other one was crying leaving me, so it had an impact on them two kids and what help was there for them? None. There was nothing. (Interviewee, 2018).

Two respondents, who had been mothers while imprisoned, stated that they had lost their eldest child through suicide. Some others felt that the lives of their children and indeed their relationship with their children had been significantly impacted as a result of their imprisonment. As was common across the sample, regardless of the circumstances each of the respondents in felt a level of personal responsibility for their child’s suffering and were haunted by the feeling that they had let them down in some way by not being there when they were children. The lack of support meant several of the women believed they had to deal with the many issues they and their children faced on their own. Some women who were mothers developed an attitude of self-reliance. There is also a common theme of women having to put others first and before their own needs. This meant that the personal difficulties they faced after release were downplayed or hidden. The structural and ideological contexts of peacebuilding probably encouraged an attitude of personal resilience. One commented: ‘I think it’s because women whatever they done, they just got on with it, you know what I mean somebody sitting mopping or whatever, you just got on with it, you probably had no other options anyway’ (Interviewee, 2018).

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Similarly, another respondent drew on the impact of women prioritising other people over themselves as a factor in underplaying or dismissing their own difficulties: They do [put other people before themselves], of course they do, you know they do, and they get on with life, they say yes, I did that and whatever, do you know. People can be very blazé sometimes and I am one of them. I would have said, get over it you know what I mean (Interviewee, 2018).

Conclusions Armed groups are dominated by men and broad representations of the prison experience can haze out gendered specific experiences. This chapter has attempted to shine a light on women’s experiences as mothers and as combatants within the prison system and on release. The research underpinning it enabled combatant mothers to tell their own stories of the challenges they faced and to map their interpretation of a conflict that drew women into the theatre of violence. While the ethics of women’s decision to join armed groups, like the decisions of their male counterparts will remain a point of controversy and debate, their experiences detailed above suggest that processes of reintegration in the peacebuilding period need to be strengthened. We know that women have had difficulty in other regions accessing DDR initiatives (Hauge, 2020). NI failed to provide sufficient support for both men and women combatants returning to communities after imprisonment leading to practices of self-help and self-reliance by ex-politically motivated prisoners. As a result, it could be argued the focus of these groups often appears to centre on survival, impacting the space to address the crucial more nuanced experiences of women specifically. What we learn from this study of combatant mothers is that a gendered focus and language is required in Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) strategies to include this group of women and to address their specific needs. Programmes are required that work to support the whole family, as all members will have been impacted by the mother’s imprisonment. Support for housing and employment to meet basic needs will support families to rebuild relationships. Again, psychological support is needed for the entire family to work through experiences of separation and loss. The role of combatant mothers in paid peacebuilding work, and paid work in general, also needs specific interventions to enable individuals to be part of rebuilding communities and contributing to a culture of peace. If those roles of local-level peacebuilders are masculinised, women will be side-lined at both communal and economic levels. Too often, women combatants’ futures are shaped by ideological assumptions about a woman’s role as homemaker, mother and grandmother when peace is agreed. All DDR programmes must work to address gendered needs and shape interventions accordingly. This chapter has attempted to draw out the challenges of the combatant mother during imprisonment and after when the process of reintegration begins.

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Motherhood in Iraq: Between the Matrix of Domination and the Matrix of Agency Yasmin Khodary

Abstract  Through employing ‘intersectionality’ and embracing Patricia Collins’s ‘Matrix’ thinking, this chapter seeks to better situate and understand Iraqi mothers’ experience and agency. Motherhood is understood as one identity that interlocks with various other identities and systems of oppression, such as ethnicity and nationality, thus shaping women’s particular experience, how they interpret their reality and how they act upon it. By looking at stories and narratives of Iraqi mothers and how their gender identity interlocks with their identity as Sunni or Shi‘i, this chapter provides an insight on how mothers interact with political violence and their agency in the face of oppression as well as the conditions and possibilities of their agency. Contrasting the agency of Iraqi mothers in two points of time – under the reign of Saddam Hussein and in the present  – this chapter finds that, because identities are constructed through everyday practices, the current turbulence, political violence, and oppression within the Iraqi context place emphasis on these women’s identities as ‘Iraqi’ ‘mothers’ more than being Sunni or Shi‘i. In other words, their nationality and gender identity – as mothers – have overtime transformed to surpass their ethnic identities in the struggle against political violence and oppression.

Introduction Iraqi women are resilient despite all the challenges and obstacles they face on a daily basis. The wars and disasters they have gone through only make them stronger. Iraqi women continue to be the foundation of our society. (Suad Al-Asadi in an interview with the European Union, 2021)

Y. Khodary (*) The British University in Egypt, Cairo, Egypt e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Ü. Arıboğan, H. Khelghat-Doost (eds.), Constructing Motherhood Identity Against Political Violence, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36538-6_7

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When I was first approached to write this chapter on Motherhood in Iraq, my initial thoughts were not very positive. For some time, I had my own personal stand on this issue being an Arab woman, who also did not have children. My concern was that over-emphasizing motherhood as a political tactic is limiting for both women and men as well as for different strands within women and men. For an Arab woman who lived the major parts of her life in Arab countries listening to statements such as “A mother is a ‘school’. If you prepared her well, you prepare a nation on good morals”, “Mothers make a Nation” and that “A woman’s place is with her husband and children”, highlighting motherhood as a form of identity for me reinforced patriarchal appeals to woman’s maternity as the primary basis for her worth. Especially for someone who did not have children, investigating mothers’ oppression, activism and uniqueness in politics, during war and peace, constituted a moral dilemma, as what about sisters, wives with no children, women in general, parents, brothers, and men in general? On the risk of being exclusionary, Julia Wells (1991) notes that “the majority of people do not experience their oppression as mothers. Men, youth, and women who are not mothers all stand outside the core of affected participants.” Wells also adds that because motherhood-based activism is often associated with a particular momentum or is relatively short lived, it “grows like bubbles which eventually burst.” As I became more reflexive on my standpoint, I realized, through the conceptual lens of ‘intersectionality’, that everyone has intersectional and interlocking identities that shape their unique experience. But these identities do not necessarily mean that someone is ‘better’ than the other, but rather that they are ‘different’ in how their identities interlock and operate together shaping their distinctive experience. Hence, motherhood – but also non-motherhood1 – can be understood as one identity that interlocks with various other identities, such as ethnicity and nationality, in a dynamic and tangled manner shaping these women/mothers’ particular experience with oppression, how they interpret their reality and how they act upon it and subsequently determining their place within the matrix not only of domination but of agency and resilience. It is, thus, through employing ‘intersectionality’ and embracing Patricia Collins’s ‘Matrix’ thinking leading to what I see as ‘matrix of agency’, that this chapter seeks to better situate and understand Iraqi mothers’ experience and agency or political subjectivity. I suggest that by looking at stories and narratives of Iraqi mothers in two points of time – under the reign of Saddam Hussein and in the present  – and how their motherhood interlock with their nationality and ethnicity as Shi‘i or Sunni, that we can learn about how these women interact with political violence and their agency in the face of oppression as well as the conditions and possibilities of their agency. The remainder of the chapter is structured as follows. First, it provides a summary of the literature on women, and particularly, mothers in times of wars and conflict. This is followed by explaining the analytical lens of the chapter. Then, in  In Politics of Non-Motherhood in Shi’a Islam, Ladan Rahbari (2020) explores this side of identity by investigating representations and agency of non-motherhood in Shi‘a, with reference to the case of the renowned Shi‘i figure, Fatemeh-Masoumeh of Qom. 1

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two sections, this chapter explains the political subjectivity and agency of Iraqi mothers in two timeframes: under the reign of Saddam Hussein and in the present with the ongoing political violence and Iranian intervention, which brought the fight to the doorsteps of mothers. Because identities are flux and constructed through everyday practices, this chapter finds that the current turbulence, political violence, and oppression within the Iraqi context has transformed the configuration of these women’s ‘matrixes of domination’ placing more emphasis on their identities as ‘Iraqi’ ‘mothers’ rather than being Sunni or Shi‘i. In other words, their nationality and motherhood identities have over time transformed to surpass their ethnic identities in the struggle against political violence and oppression.

Women and Motherhood in Times of Conflict and War For too long, the mainstream literature on conflict and war, whether situated in comparative politics or in international relations, associated masculinities with violence and women or femininity with peace (Elshtain, 1995). The male identity was seen as life-taking, whereas the female identity was seen as linked to motherhood or lifegiving and, subsequently, victimhood (Skjelsbæk, 2001). For example, Bunch and Carrillo (1992), Wallace (1993), Bennett et al. (1995), Benjamin and Fancy (1998), Turshen and Twagiramariya (1998) and Moser and Clark (2001) highlight the various human rights abuses and violence which women and mothers, in specific, are exposed to during conflicts and displacement. Rehn and Sirleaf (2002), Plümper and Neumayer (2006), Kaufman and Williams (2010), and Kudakwashe and Richard (2015) highlight the economic difficulties which women and mothers are exposed to during conflicts in addition to their poor accessibility to primary services and basic needs in countries like Somalia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, East Timor, Afghanistan, and Palestine. Furthermore, they point to their exposure to sexual violence and mass rape during civil wars and violence times in countries like Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo, Burma, Democratic Republic of Congo, Darfur and Somalia. In many cases, women  – not primarily because of their gender identity but mostly due to their national or ethnic identities – are targeted and victimized purposefully with the aim of tearing down the ‘fabric’ of their communities, spreading terror in the hearts of both civilians and combatants and portraying the opposing group as weak, humiliated, emasculated and feminine (Rehn & Sirleaf, 2002; Mazurana, 2010; Kudakwashe & Richard, 2015). Beyond the victimhood, literature explored some roles for women and mothers in fragile and conflict contexts, but through a necessarily peaceful feminist standpoint. Cockburn (2001) explored the roles of women in resisting oppression and violence. Cockburn (2012) explains the resisting roles of some women ‘anti-­ war’, ‘anti-militarism’, and ‘peace’ movements in Japan, South Korea, Spain, and Britain and the elements and values they share. Resorting to violence was, hence, seen as an exception and was perceived by some scholars as ‘twisted maternalism’

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referring to a form of abnormal and politicized act associated with motherhood (Gentry, 2009). This essentialist feminist standpoint of motherhood has dominated International Relations Theory for some time. Standpoint feminists  – in contrast to traditional International Relations views of security as state-centered  – argue that security should address acts of rape and violence, not only from foreign perpetrators, but from their own fellow citizens as well. Despite their contribution in bridging the gap between what is internal and external or comparative politics and international relations, standpoint feminists still essentialize and homogenize the roles of women and mothers as necessarily marginalized and peaceful. For example, Ann Tickner (2002) argues that International Relations is structured to “marginalize women’s voices” and that security should not only be understood as “defending the state from attack” but also consider that security for women who are more likely to be attacked by men they know, not only from strangers from other states. In Sara Ruddick’s Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace, motherhood and mothering is theorized as an alternative to the way in which global politics is conducted. Ruddick argues that there is peacefulness latent in maternal practice which means that a transformed maternal thinking could make a distinctive contribution to peace politics (Ruddick, 1995). However, gender is socially constructed and true that both men and women conform to social expectations (Hilhorst & Frerks, 1999), but they can also ‘learn’ or ‘unlearn’ certain behaviors especially with change in contexts and eventually social expectations. Hence, stemming from the third wave of feminism, news strands of literature erupted reflecting more agency and context-specific depictions of women’s roles, allowing for roles beyond the assumed peaceful roles of women, whether as promoters of peace and social cohesion or perpetrators of political violence (George-Williams, 2005; Hudson, 2006; Åhäll, 2012). Feminism’s third wave began in early 1990s challenging the second wave’s essentialist definition of femininity, which they believed emphasizes experiences of upper-middle class white women. Third-wave feminism makes three important tactical moves that differentiates it from the second wave. First, in response to the collapse of the essentialist category of “women,” the third wave centers personal narratives that illustrate an intersectional and multiperspectival version of feminism. Hence, third-wave feminists often focus on “micro-politics”. Second, as a consequence of the rise of postmodernism, third-wavers embrace multivocality and action over theoretical justification, Third, they emphasize an inclusive and nonjudgmental approach that refuses to police the boundaries on feminism as well as acknowledge race and other identities (Snyder, 2008). In Sierra Leone, for example, women were engaged in the planning and actual fighting activities (Mazurana & Carlson, 2004). In Sudan, Rwanda, and Eritrea, women played violent and revenge-related roles (Powley & Anderlini, 2003; Bouta et al., 2004). Women were also actors in uprisings, liberation movements, and even combatants in countries, such as El-Salvador and Sri Lanka (Moser & Clark, 2001; Bouta et al., 2004). In Algeria, South Yemen, Guinea-Bissau during the 1970s, Nicaragua during the 1980s, and Palestine, women fought against colonial and imperial domination (Sedghi, 1994). In Guatemala and

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Bolivia, grassroots women’s movements rose up against internal repression, class inequalities, and capitalist oppression (Mazurana, 2013). In nationalist discourses, motherhood reflects diverse, and sometimes contested, forms of agency. There is the ‘Patriotic Mother’ and the ‘Spartan Mother’. The ‘Patriotic Mother’ reflects an ever-ready womb for war. She performs her duty by ‘producing’ children or soldiers of the nation. The more children she produces, the more her heroism is magnified (Cooke, 1996). However, motherhood in this sense operates as a weapon as mothers’ multi-birthing generate and reproduced new fighters (Brunner, 2005). Similarly, the ‘Spartan Mother’ raises her sons as warriors ready to defend their nation (Elshtain, 1995). In addition, in their study for conflicts in 55 countries between 1990 and 2003, Mckay and Mazurana (2004) found also an active participation for women and mothers in 38 countries, including Macedonia, Lebanon and Uganda, not only in armed liberation movements but also in armies and guerilla forces, comprising from one-tenth to one-third of the combatants. Hence, it is important not to impose presumptions about women or mothers’ behaviors and roles because these change from one context to another depending on the socio-cultural, political, and security conditions. Women’s roles have to be analyzed within each context taking into consideration the changing socio-cultural, economic, and political parameters. Not only roles but also conditions and possibilities of mothers’ agency are different within each context. For example, Hudson (2006) points to mothers’ ability to organize pro-peace movements, such as Mothers Fronts in Yugoslavia, Latin America and Russia and Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared in Chile and Kashmir. O’Connell (2011) also found out that, in some cases like Uganda, Liberia, Congo, Afghanistan, and Nepal, mothers succeeded to participate in elections and formal politics and engage in small-scale economic enterprises because they were able to self-mobilize themselves, communicate their views and become more politically active in times where a window of opportunity was open or commitment to women’s participation was a priority. However, this was not always the case. However, in countries like Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Kosovo, and Southern Sudan, women were hardly played any effective roles in peace negotiations and were resisted by existent male dominating elites (Enloe, 2010; Castillejo, 2011). Hence, as highlighted by third-wave feminism, women’s roles should be understood and studied within each context and the embedded conditions or possibilities. With such background in mind, the rest of the study explores the Iraqi mothers’ experience with political violence and their agency in the face of oppression as well as the conditions and possibilities of their agency.

The Analytical Lens of the Chapter This chapter employs ‘intersectionality’ to understand the Iraqi mothers’ experience and their agency in the face of political violence and oppression while also embracing the ‘Matrix’ thinking introduced by Patricia Collins. Intersectionality refers to

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interlocking identities and systems of oppression, such as race, gender, color, social class, education, economic status, sexuality, sexual orientation, and disability. Intersectionality refers to how different identities are interlocked and mutually constitutive and reinforcing in what Roth (2013) calls “simultaneous entanglement of inequalities” shaping women’s experience differently (Roth 2013 as cited in Mphaphuli, 2021). Intersectionality in this sense refers to a dynamic situation where identity categories are interactive not only among themselves but also with the unique lived experience of the person. As Collins (2002) puts it, Oppression is constantly changing, different aspects of an individual U.S. Black woman’s self-definitions intermingle and become more salient: Her gender may be more prominent when she becomes a mother, her race when she searches for housing, her social class when she applies for credit, her sexual orientation when she walks with her lover, and her citizenship status when she applies for a job. In all these contexts, her position in relation to and within intersecting oppressions shifts.

Intersectionality was first introduced in black feminist thought to describe the experience of black women with oppression which is differed from men and other nonblack women. Kimberle Crenshaw was the first to coin the term “intersectionality” followed by African American women of the nineteen century such as Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Ida Wells-Barnett, Mary Terrell, Patricia Collins, and Chandra Mohanty (May 2015). Intersectionality became revisits the spreading essentialist and homogenizing understanding of women experience with respect only to gender. The original intent of intersectionality is to show that the dynamic intersection of identities can reveal how unequal relations of power lead to differential forms of oppression. Collins uses the term matrix of domination to underscore that one’s position in society is made up of multiple contiguous standpoints rather than just one essentialist standpoint. Collins asserts that, “Each individual derives varying amounts of penalty and privilege from the multiple systems of oppression which frame everyone’s lives.” The main question is how to move to matrix thinking that will account for the power dynamics of different identity categories that are co-constitutive not only of domination and oppression, but also of agency and subjectivity rather than still reducing experience to oppression or to a single axis of identity. According to Amanda Gouws (2017), The important implication of matrix thinking is that it prevents the ‘add and stir’ approach, often used to add one or more identity group to existing epistemological approaches, political strategies or research methodologies, so that we can account for relationships of power and how they impact people. (p. 21)

The matrix thinking here is not only relevant for a critical understanding of domination but also of agency. Intersecting, interlocking, and dynamically interacting identities across periods of time do not only shape one’s experience of domination, but also of struggle, resilience, resistance, or, in this sense, agency. Though agency in relation to motherhood is heavily influenced with the essentially peaceful standpoint, there is still strong contribution for other scholars on agency that can be drawn to motherhood. For example, Gentry (2009) points at two forms

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of agency reflected in active maternalism where women are anti-violence and engaged in promoting peace and passive maternalism where women are not active participants but ‘subordinately held as an idealized subject’ (mothers of nations). Beyond this traditional essentialist perspective, agency as action-based has been more broadly classified by other scholars, though not necessarily with reference to motherhood. Howarth and Stavrakakis (2000) highlight legitimate and illegitimate forms of agency. Similarly, In Civil Resistance and Conflict Transformation, Dudouet (2015) classifies action-based agency and responses to oppression into two main categories. The first category refers to conventional/non-contentious actions, including party politics, advocacy or diplomacy, dialogue and negotiations, and litigation. The second category is non-intuitional/contentious actions including: a) nonviolent/ unarmed/peaceful resistance through protest and persuasion, non-cooperation, disruptive intervention, and creative resistance, and b) violent/armed resistance through warfare, terrorist attacks, guerrilla insurgency, protest violence, and sabotage. These two sub-categories of resistance operate outside the bounds of conventional political channels and are usually employed by an oppressed minority or disempowered majority. The main difference between armed and unarmed activism lies in the use or absence of direct violence, which inflicts physical damage to persons or property. Embracing the matrix thinking here allows us to accept that different forms of agency can exist across different points of time or even within the same point of time depending on how identities and systems of oppression are interlocked and which identities play greater role in constructing one or group’s agency and subjectivity. The following parts of the chapter analyze political subjectivity and agency of Iraqi mothers, while employing the matrix thinking where varied identities, including gender, nationality, ethnicity, and even one’s particular experience and interpretation of violence and oppression intersect and interlock, playing different and changing roles over time.

Iraqi Shi‘i Mothers Under the Reign of Saddam Hussein As Annelise Orleck notes, “For many women in cultures around the world, motherhood is a powerful political identity around which they have galvanized broad-based and influential grassroots movements for social change” (Orleck, 1997). Though the political identity of Shi‘i Iraqi mothers was not manifested in a concrete grassroots movement, it has still played an essential role in resisting oppression and creating or claiming a political space through employing religious practices and rituals. Religious and cultural practices and narratives as well as the mourning rituals associated with Karbala battle, in particular, symbolize the Shi‘i Iraqi mothers’ agency, especially under the closed and oppressive regime of Saddam Hussein. To the Shi‘i, the battle of Karbala holds a great political significance as it exemplifies the fight against oppression and injustice.

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Iraqi Shi‘i mothers look up to the mothers in the battle of Karbala, who were symbols of bravery, patience, and resilience, such as Om Al Baneen, the wife of Imam Hussein’s father (Sayyidna Ali Bin Abi Taleb), who lost four of her sons in Karbala, thus symbolizing the “sacrificial mother” or the Spartan Mother raising her sons as warriors ready to defend their cause. Iraqi women who lose more than one child often identify themselves with Om Al Baneen or if they lose one child, they associate themselves with Laila (the mother of Ali Al Akber), Ramleh (the mother of Al Qasim), and Al Rabab (the mother of Abdullah) (Shabbar, 2014). As Lara Deeb (2021) puts it, Karbala practices and narrative “provides comprehension of present-day events in Iraq, and the horrific impact it has on women’s lives.” Given its political importance, practices and rituals commemorating the battle of Karbala in Iraq were legally prohibited under the Saddam Hussein’s rule in 2003. The mourning practices associated with the battle of Karbala, which starts on the first day of Moharram and ends on the tenth day known as Ashura, also have a political connotation in building the Shi‘i community collective identity. The “Karbala Paradigm” and “Ashura Assemblage” exemplify how practices and rituals, especially within certain assemblage spaces, contribute to the reproduction of collective Shi‘I identity (Parkes, 2021). The mourning rituals were significant in expressing political anger especially when Shi‘i cities were destroyed or when Iraqi Shi‘i men were labeled as enemies of state and were, thus, kidnapped, tortured, killed, and denied proper funerals. But even when they were legally prohibited, Iraqi Shi‘i mothers, given the restrictions under Saddam’s regime, started to hold in their homes the mourning rituals while relating their loss and political struggle to the women in Karbala and contributing to recovery and rejuvenation of resilience, resistance, and martyrdom sentiments among Iraqi Shi‘i community (Szanto, 2013). In this sense, the mourning rituals transcended their direct purpose of mourning into teaching the story of Karbala and giving it a new meaning in accordance with the changing political realities, thus, playing a major role in (re)manufacturing the collective identity of current and new generations. In the same sense, Iraqi Shi‘i mothering and child rearing over religious and cultural narratives and rituals of the battle of Karbala could be and should be interpreted as a political action. Mothering children in war zones and in militarized societies is inevitably a political act, because it most often involves the nurturing of safe resistance within children. In her research on Palestinian mothers, Julie Peteet (1997) explained how Palestinian mothers consider their motherhood as a form of “nidal,” or political struggle. Through cultivating ideas and mechanisms of “psychological resistance” in their children against violence and oppression, mothers ensure the survival of their families beyond the physical domain to the psychological one. Such a discursive portrayal of motherhood embraces the understanding that the political domain is an integral part of everyday mothering. One of the narratives associated with Karbala, which Shi‘i mothers channel throughout child rearing is “Every day is Ashura and every land is Karbala” (Shabbar, 2014), thus transforming what was once a historical incident into a political project encouraging rebellion against injustice and despotism not only in the past but also in contemporary times. Motherhood teaching in times of oppression

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and political violence can construct an oppositional voice within the community using unstructured and creative methods of political activism. Mothers turn what seems to be ‘apolitical’ everyday mothering into a form of political activism and resistance. Here the power of storytelling in general and through motherhood teaching, in particular, becomes important. Inheriting Our Mothers’ Gardens is among the most informative books about storytelling that examines the “power of stories.” Telling and re-telling the story of the battle of Karbala along with the mourning practices have been seen as ‘jihad of words’ without which the tragedy of Karbala would have been forgotten or reduced to a sad story and the collective political identity would have been weakened (Deeb, 2005; Hamdar, 2009). Iraqi women learned the power of stories from Sayyidah Zaynab, who was the first to lead mourning gatherings in remembrance of Husayn’s martyrdom. As Szanto (2020) puts it “if it had not been for Sayyidah Zaynab, the story of the battle of Karbala would never have reached us!” (p. 184). According to Lara Deeb (2021), this is a new reinterpretation of the behavior of Sayyidah Zaynab at Karbala; a reinterpretation that involved to new roles and contributions for Shi‘i women in their community. This transformation in the role of Sayyidah Zaynab, whose mourning has been seen for too long as a passive act, helped making Ashura closer to contemporary struggles and “more authentic than tradition” (Deeb, 2021). Only with the fall of the regime in 2003 that the rituals and practices associated with the battle of Karbala started to be held in public. However, even then, they were still subject to terrorist attacks for their religious and, even more, their political connotation.

When the Battle Was Brought to Their Doorstep In late 2019, vibrant protests swept the Iraqi streets demanding an end to the corrupt political order that has taken control of Iraq for nearly two decades. They asked for jobs, better services and, most importantly, an end to the Iranian influence in Iraq. Hundreds of activists, Shi‘a and Sunna, have been killed during demonstrations, but also in targeted assassinations which were widely blamed on pro-Iran militias. Many of these killings took place outside of the victims’ homes, not only in full view of security cameras and sometimes in the middle of the day, but also close to their mothers’ eyes. This has brought the fight to the doorstep of the Iraqi mothers who had to witness the assassination and the bodies of their sons. The voices of Iraqi mothers have thus rose up to demand justice from the people responsible for the murder of their sons. For example, Shahla Younis or Umm Muhanad has publicly blamed the Shi‘i cleric Muqtada al-­Sadr, whose political bloc won the largest number of seats in October’s parliamentary elections in Iraq, for the murder of her son Muhanad al-Qaisi in February during a protest in the southern city of Najaf. The protests witnessed violent attacks and use of force from the side of Muqtada al-­Sadr supporters and other pro-Iran militias. According to Ruba al-­Hassani, a postdoctoral

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research associate with the University of Lancaster “Umm Muhanad was the first to speak out about her son’s loss on a more vocal level. She was then followed by other mothers who also spoke out about their losses.” Samira Abbas, known to most as Umm Ehab, or “the mother of Ehab,” had followed the same but a more vocal path. Ehab al-Wazni was one of the most recognizable faces of a once-vibrant protest movement that began in late 2019. Speaking up about their losses is not as passive as it may seem. In fact, it resembles Sayyidah Zaynab’s ‘jihad of words’ through mourning and telling the story of the battle of Karbala without which stories get lost and forgotten (Deeb, 2005; Hamdar, 2009). Abbas recalls memories of her son in every occasion stating, “he used to call me every day to check on me and ask if I needed anything – ask if he should pick up bread. But that day, he didn’t call. I got worried. I opened the door to check the alley,” Abbas continued, “I went back inside, but then I heard our neighbor screaming: Umm Ehab. They killed your son.” Though the neighbor’s statement in Abbas’s story did not mention a clear name, it was however, pointing to what seems to be ‘known’ groups for everyone. Later, Abbas explicitly accused Qasim Musleh, the leader of the Iran-backed Tafuf Brigade, and his men of killing her son in cold blood and in full view of security cameras. When Wazni was killed, footages of a gunman calmly walking up to his car with a rifle and shooting him dead before hopping on the back of a getaway motorcycle in full view of security cameras which feed of the narrow street leading to their home in the city of Karbala. Interesting to note here that unlike the Karbala discourse and mourning practices which were employed by Shi‘i mothers, thus reflecting and fortifying their sub-­ national ethnic identity as Shi‘a, it is unclear here whether these women are Sunni or Shi‘i. Bringing their sub-national identity as Sunni or Shi‘i was never brought up by these women in social media, news, television, interviews, or any other form of formal or even informal discussion. Iraqis youth protested demanding an end to the corrupt political order that has gripped Iraq for the better part of two decades. They asked for jobs, better services, and an end to Iranian influence in Iraq. With such unifying goals that transcended sub-state and sub-national identities in mind, the mothers’ actions reflected their gender and national identities as ‘Iraqi mothers’ above everything else. in front of the governor’s office, Wazni’s mother, Abbas, for instance, she repeated the same slogan raised by her son: ‘I’m not an Iranian, nor a foreigner. I’m an Iraqi”, thus emphasizing the national identity above everything else (Yasin, 2021). In addition to telling and re-telling their stories through media and public as well as private spaces, in what could be seen as creative resistance, Iraqi mothers also employed many other tactics and strategies that resemble Dudouet’s two categories of action-based agency and responses to oppression, including conventional actions, namely litigation, and non-intuitional/contentious actions in the form of n­ onviolent/ unarmed/peaceful resistance through protest, disruptive intervention and creative resistance. Since Wazni was shot dead by a gunman, Abbas went through different channels to bring justice to her murdered son, who became a symbol of the impunity which Iraqi activists and overall community suffer. Abbas first filed a lawsuit against Mosleh of the Tafuf Brigade, the Iranian-backed militias. She submitted multiple

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evidence on her accusations, including footages proving Mosleh’s involvement in the murder (Yasin, 2021). Yet, Mosleh was never proven guilty. To Wazni’s mother, the judiciary system seemed “collusive” with the armed factions and the security forces in concealing the truth. As litigation proved ineffective and stumbled, Abbas had to deploy contentious tactics. She wanted justice for her son and perceived the justice system as flawed and politicized. According to Ruba al-Hassani, “the justice system hasn’t been giving them the closure that they need” (Al-Hassani as cited in Al-Turfe, 2021). Hence, the grieved, sick and old mother held the image of her son and camped in front of Karbala court, where she insisted to find out the truth about who killed her son. In front of the governor, she repeated the same slogan raised by her son, ‘I’m not an Iranian, nor a foreigner. I’m an Iraqi”, but also added, “I want my son. I know he’s dead and buried under the ground, but I want to know the criminal who killed my son; I want to see him.” The failure to hold the powerful to account has pushed these women to use their own status as mothers to publicly shame officials. Despite the security forces’ attempt to dismantle her tent, Abbas stood defiant of all the security forces around her. Here, Abbas’s age as one aspect of the matrix of domination gave her privilege. Abbas’s respectability as an elderly mother, in a way, protected her from being exposed to same levels of violence younger protesters face (Al-Hassani as cited in Al-Turfe, 2021). Eventually, it was a “masked” man within the security force who could forcibly remove her small tent in an attempt to end her strike. Masking his face was the only way the security officer could escape the shame of expelling an old woman. Against Gentry (2009)’s argument that motherhood is used to make a woman’s political decision about emotions and relationship instead of strategy or politics, hence denying mothers rationality, Abbas’s responses exemplify a rational attempt to escalate her cause over various hierarchical levels. Abbas did not only file a lawsuit or camped in front of Karbala court to bring justice to her murdered son, but she also attempted to meet with the UN representatives who came for a visit to Karbala to consult with the Iraqi Hezbollah and Hashd al-Shaabi, an Iraqi paramilitary network dominated by Iran-backed factions (Yasin, 2021). Despite that Abbas failed to meet with the UN representatives at the beginning, the UN representative eventually came to visit Abbasa in her home. In itself, this was a sign of Abbas’s influential contentious actions through protest as well as creative resistance through storytelling. In fact, the scene of the ‘masked’ man removing the tent steered a momentum across public physical as well as virtual spaces in Iraq. Activists and bloggers launched a wide campaign on Twitter under the hashtag “# We are all_ Umm_ Ehab” to denounce the behavior of the security forces against Iraqi protesters. Activists showed solidarity with Wazani’s mother, demanding an end to the Iranian influence in Iraq. In November 2021, Abbas took part in a demonstration called “The march of the mothers of martyrs to end the impunity from punishment” in Karbala, with other mothers protesting the impunity from punishment. Despite being an old woman, Abbas was labeled by the young protestors as “the Face of the Revolution”. This can be seen as a change in the male-dominated discursive space in Iraq, which hardly

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brought the names of women or their roles in public. This was not, however, the first time mothers’ names were used as the slogan of the protests of revolution. One of the early martyrs of the protests, Safaa al-Sarai who was shot in October 2019, was referred to as Ibn Thanwa (Son of Thanwa), in reference to his mother Thanwa, instead of referring to him by his father’s name. The protestors often screamed rafe’ raseh ya Thanwa (Holding his head up oh Thanwa) to emphasize the pride of the protestors and how they make their mothers and the whole country proud. In fact, in retrospect, many protestors use their mother’s name instead of their father’s names. Eventually, following the “March of the Iraqi mothers of martyrs”, the Iraq’s prime minister ordered the arrest of Mosleh, of the Tafuf Brigade. One aspect that is associated with motherhood in the Arab countries, including Iraq, but often underplayed in the western literature, is sisterhood. In Arab countries, sisters are brought up to feel and act in ways that are very similar to mothers. This is a result of the patriarchal culture that dominates Arab societies, in which a female child is brought up to look after her younger or even older brothers. In a sense, she feels, acts, and behaves like a protective and second mother. This cultural particularity in Arab countries, including Iraq, has its repercussions not only in the private sphere, but also the public sphere. Most of the women who participated in the Iraqi uprising explained that their participation in the uprising was to protect their brothers, denounce the violence which young and male protestors faced, and ‘honor the martyrs’ (Al Ammar, 2020; Ali, 2022). As with major women contributions to nationalist struggles in developing countries, those Iraqi women aligned with the main slogan of the protests, Inryd watan (we want homeland/country). Iraqi women, whether mothers or second mothers ‘sisters’, did not mobilize after feminists’ demands or present feminist/women-centered agenda but rather supported the goals of the ongoing uprising. Once again too, their national identities as Iraqi are key in explaining their actions over their subnational or ethnic identities. Their bodies and massive corporeal presence were central to the protection of the uprising and the process of citizenship-­making through becoming agents of collective action and transformation. According to Zahra Ali (2022), Women’s massive corporeal presence, along with male protestors (often acting as human shields around their march), challenged sextarianism. In this sense, women’s massive corporeal presence signified an anti-sextarian citizenship, as well as a rejection of necropolitics and a celebration of life in the post-2003 Iraqi context. Many of the protestors – both men and women  – in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square expressed the fact that women’s presence meant ‘life’. It signified the support of the entire society for the uprising. Departing from the notion of ‘resistance’, women’s corporeal presence produced an alternative material and discursive space.

If this will continue to the post-uprising era or is going to be unseen or even reversed in the post-uprising discourse as occurred in many post-independence and post-­ revolutions context is a question that remains to be answered. This reflects, at least in the momentum of the uprising, an emancipated form of dissent that is not simply bound to women’s identity as women.

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Gender identities intersecting with their national identities remain, however, a crucial aspect in the matrix of domination of women who took part in protests. Gender mixing (ikhtilat) during the protests was used by several Islamist political leaders, including Moqtada al-Sadr, as a mean to condemn female protestors. Women’s voice was declared as ‘awra (shameful) and the women’s 2020 protests’ slogan #Banatek ya watan (Your daughters, oh country) was turned into #‘Aheratek ya watan (Your whores, oh country) (Al Ammar, 2020; Ali, 2022). By forbidding gender mixing and declaring women’s voice as ‘awra, Islamist political groups aimed to disqualify the uprising, stimulate gender-based violence and return women back to what they see is their ‘original place’, thus restoring their masculinity. Female protestors, in return, responded La mu ‘awra sawtech thawra (No it is not shameful, your voice is a revolution) and writing on the wall of the tunnel leading to Tahrir Square, ‘Women of the October revolution are revolutionaries not whores.’ The slogan Sawt al-mar‘a thawra (A woman’s voice is a revolution) was key to every protest following the extremist religious and political violence against women (Al Ammar, 2020; Ali, 2022). By doing so, women attempted to turn their gender and national identities into means and motives for agency whether through their corporeal occupation of outdoor spaces or their presence in cyberspace. However, Iraqi mothers did not always distance themselves from Iraqi formal politics or institutions, thus operating within Dudouet’s second category outside the bounds of conventional political channels (e.g., through protests or creative resistance). Litigation was not also the only strategy which Iraqi mothers deployed within Dudouet’s first category of conventional and non-contentious actions to demonstrate agency and resilience. In some occasion, they have resorted to advocacy and dialogue. Suad Al-Asadi, a mother of four who lost her son amid the sectarian violence in Iraq exemplifies a story of agency through engagement with formal institutions and deploying negotiations and advocacy. With an aim to end the violence and conflict that made her lose her son, Al-Asadi attempted to promote the implementation of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda and the implementation of the Iraqi National Action Plan (I-NAP) through her job as a Director of the Female Training Institute and the Head of the Women Empowerment Committee in the Ministry of Interior. Al-Asadi was aware that no peacebuilding plan could be sustainable or impactful without being inclusive of the women’s perspective or mainstreaming gender. Her advocacy and promotion of peace required Al-Asadi to work with civil society organizations, leaders, activists, women, and local communities to enhance the role of women in peace-building and protecting their rights (European Union, 2021). Al-Asadi made it her aim to increase women’s corporal existence in the Ministry of Interior in the areas of gender and human rights, social justice, investigations, field operations, and protection of civilians. The Family and Child Protection Directorate and the Community Police, for instance, play an important role in protecting and supporting victims of violence and bringing justice to the victims. This, however, cannot be ensured without women’s involvement in the process and in such units. As Al-Asadi, who is unclear whether she is Sunni or Shi‘i, puts it,

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My goal is to advance the role of women and promote gender equality within the Iraqi security forces. In my view it is also important to implement laws and regulations and to provide training for women. The increased number of female police officers and intelligence officers strengthens the intelligence services and contributes in making the Iraqi society more stable and secure. The active participation of women at all levels of decision-making and political involvement is essential. The Iraqi women are the foundation of our society. (European Union, 2021)

It appears from the above-mentioned stories and narratives of Iraqi mothers that ethnic identities did not play the most influential role in shaping their agency and political subjectivity. Because identities are constructed through everyday practices, the current turbulence, political violence, and oppression within the Iraqi context has transformed these women’s matrixes of domination placing emphasis on their identities as ‘Iraqi’ ‘mothers’ more than being Sunni or Shi‘i. In other words, their nationality and motherhood identities have, over time, transformed to surpass their ethnic identities in the struggle against political violence and oppression. Embracing Patricia Collins’s ‘Matrix’ thinking allows us to understand Iraqi mothers’ experience and how their layers and order of identities changed over time resulting not only in creating their matrix of domination’ but also their ‘matrix of agency’ and political subjectivity. Iraqi women’s identities are in flux and are being transformed to cope with and respond to political and religious violence as well as unresponsive government structures.

Conclusion This chapter is inspired by third-wave feminism, which pays attention to “micro-­ politics” and personal narratives in illustrating an intersectional and multi-­ perspectival version of feminism that acknowledge a broad range of tangled identities. The analytical perspective applied throughout this chapter treats identities not only as resulting from naming but also as being constructed through everyday practices and interaction within a particular socio-political context. Similar to Swidler’s understanding of culture as a toolbox or repertoire, interlocking and intersectional identities seem to “influence action not by providing the ultimate values toward which action is oriented, but by shaping a repertoire” from which people can choose to emphasize or de-emphasize certain identities as the basis of their agency or action upon issues. This understanding of identities emphasizes human agency capable not only of change but also of selecting the basis for that change or action according to the historical moment and context. Under the reign of Saddam Hussein, the ethnic political identity of Shi‘i Iraqi mothers played an essential role in resisting oppression and creating or claiming a political space through employing religious practices and rituals. Shi‘i Iraqi mothers employed the narratives and rituals associated with the battle of Karbala to make sense of their surrounding political violence, enhance the Shi‘i community collective identity, and instigate a sense of struggle and resistance

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through mothering or child rearing and storytelling. But changing political and social realities influence the ways identities operate. Iraqi women’s identities are, thus, in flux and are being transformed as a result of the political and religious violence as well as unresponsive government structures. Whether Shi‘i or Sunni, the Iraqi mothers are currently employing conventional acts of agency, such as litigation, advocacy, and negotiations, as well as non-conventional acts of agency, such as creative resistance, strikes, and protests, in the face of political and religious violence as well as oppression. Their nationality and motherhood identities have over time transformed to surpass their ethnic identities in the struggle against political violence and oppression. The role of motherhood in Iraq, in this sense, demonstrates how different and dynamically changing identity categories are co-constitutive not only of domination and oppression but also of agency and subjectivity.

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Identity, Trauma, and Resistance: The Lived Experience of Palestinian Motherhood in the West Bank Lili Broekhuysen and Fadwa Al Shaer

Abstract Generations of Palestinian mothers have endured the socioemotional, physical, and political, realities of protracted conflict and military occupation. The notion of what it means to be a mother in the Occupied Territories is often defined on the international stage as those responsible for raising violent extremists or those simply experiencing the loss of children and family members without any agency in the violent landscape surrounding them. Such notions of the Palestinian mother are defined by power relations where the occupier has simultaneously bolstered its discriminatory narratives and historically silenced women. This is particularly true in the case of Palestinian mothers whose children have: carried out acts of political violence, been murdered by the Israeli Defense Forces and settlers, or have been politically imprisoned. With this backdrop of violence and silencing in mind, this research was conducted in the format of an ethnographic study with the aim to share the voices of those most marginalized by the occupation and conflict, Palestinian mothers, thus shedding light on their experience of motherhood in their own words. For this research, a focus group discussion was conducted with 19 Palestinian mothers living in the Am’ari Refugee Camp in the West Bank. Findings show different ways of experiencing motherhood and the role of nationalism, religion, and solidarity among the Palestinian collective society in coping with trauma. Shared suffering, resistance, agency, and empowerment act as important tools to endure and counter political violence which emerged as overarching themes and determinants for the mothers’ identities.

L. Broekhuysen (*) Independent Scholar, Frankfurt, Germany F. Al Shaer Jerusalem Center for Women, Ramallah, Palestine © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Ü. Arıboğan, H. Khelghat-Doost (eds.), Constructing Motherhood Identity Against Political Violence, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36538-6_8

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Introduction The 1948 foundation of the State of Israel is called in Arabic as Al Nakba, meaning catastrophe, referring to the destruction of more than 500 Palestinian villages and the forced expulsion of more than 750,000 men, women, and children from their land and homes (Haddad, 2022). The Nakba presents a turning point for Palestinians both internally displaced and in those in the diaspora, and thus has come to play a central role in the construction of Palestinian identity. Furthermore, Palestinian state formation and rights to self-determination have been directly hampered by the politically violent climate, which makes living free and normal lives extremely difficult, especially for Palestinian mothers who endure various forms of oppression, discrimination, and pain. For women in general, the situation is particularly strenuous as two primary conditions impact them. The first is political oppression, including ongoing inequality, lack of opportunities, and discrimination rooted in settler-colonial systemic racism. On the other hand, patriarchal Palestinian societal norms act as compounding layer of oppression for women where traditions and expectations hinge on a genderbiased culture and stereotypes (Cohen & Leichtentritt, 2010). Therefore, women face hardships caused by both the Israeli occupation and culture-­based constraints. In comparison to their Palestinian male counterparts, women are at a clear disadvantage and more vulnerable to political unrest, restrictions regarding liberty, mobility, rights, and the asymmetrical balance of power (Aghabekian, 2017). In an attempt to understand the nuanced role of Palestinian national identity and agency among Palestinian mothers living in the West Bank, this chapter provides insights into their experiences of living in a society that is deeply affected by both patriarchal values and a settler-colonial project that tries to erase the Palestinian identity, culture, and people. This chapter will present stories from Palestinian mothers about the challenges they are facing, the effects of exposure to conflict, oppression, and violence, and the traumatic experience of the imprisonment or loss of their children. It will further address their role in society while focusing particularly on how women navigate this complex environment and how motherhood is used as a tool to counter political violence highlighting the multilayered dimensions of motherhood as an identity and its relation to collective Palestinian society.

Palestinian Women Despite the increased inclusion of non-Western voices in the field of gender studies, Arab women’s voices have often been neglected, misrepresented, or overlooked. This holds true, especially for Palestinian mothers whose experiences of caring for and losing their children in conflict situations have gained little attention from scholars (Akesson, 2015). One of the reasons for this is the larger political context

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through which Palestinian women have to navigate. Therefore, other issues mothers and women generally face, such as pregnancy, premature birth, health care needs, childcare, or psychological trauma, have become secondary (Aghabekian, 2017). The latter specifically needs to be placed in the context of patriarchal structures, political oppression, and expectations from the collective Palestinian struggle and identity. In addition to their highly restricted movement, Palestinian women are often denied legal, medical, and healthcare services and are subject to sexual harassment at points of contact with forces of occupying power and within their societies. Moreover, increased tensions in the West Bank and the fear of home demolition, sexual violence, and detentions of family members and children exacerbate the situation further (Khodary & Salah, 2020). To understand the notion of agency among Palestinian mothers in the West Bank, the discussion of the constructed identity of motherhood must be placed within both the sociocultural context and the context of political violence as the Palestinian national struggle often dominates the discourse of Palestinian women and, specifically, mothers.

Dominant Palestinian Gender Role Narratives Being confronted with expectations and restrictions that have arisen from patriarchal values, decades of oppression and violence, and strict occupation policies, Palestinian mothers struggle to fulfill their gender-assigned caregiving responsibilities while addressing their own physical and emotional needs (Akesson, 2015). The depiction of women and their experiences are defined by gender stereotypes and hegemonic narratives which deny women’s agency. The stereotype of a “peaceful woman”, who is guided by emotions, innocence, and purity, reinforces the notion of the ideal woman in a conflict setting as one that does not engage in violence and one that is expected to take care of her family (Gentry & Sjoberg, 2015). When delving into women’s gendered experiences, Sjoberg and Gentry emphasize the importance of understanding gender and its meanings, “Gender is an intersubjective social construction that constantly evolves with changing societal perceptions and intentional manipulation” (Sjoberg & Gentry, 2007: 5). While this applies to both men and women, gender subordination which manifests as the subordination of femininities to masculinities, continues to shape social and political life across time, space, and culture. It must be mentioned that gendered experiences do not imply that all women or men have similar life experiences due to sex commonality. People who may present as the same sex within the gender binary differ in their experiences of gender as their backgrounds are diverse, non-universal, and subjective. That said, dominant narratives often characterize women as one homogenous group, and thus, “deviant women are set in opposition to idealized gender stereotypes” (Sjoberg & Gentry, 2007: 7). Those who do not fit in the narrative have been portrayed as unnatural, psychologically unstable, and gender

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defiant. Therefore, the commonality among the female gender group lies in the treatment and depiction of women through traditional discourse and dominant narratives that highlight their role as victims rather than agents (Holt, 2003). A dominant narrative has the power to influence one’s views on a certain event as it is “one spoken by voices which receive substantial audience, such that the dominant narrative becomes the account … the audience then internalizes the narrative as their intellectual, emotional or even sensory understanding of that event” (Sjoberg & Gentry, 2007: 27). In conflict situations, for instance, narratives can increase the possibility of war and conflict and therefore influence the outcome. In conflicts, tellers of stories will cast themselves as victors creating a narrative that makes the audience believe they are the heroes. This applies to any instance of conflict or violence in global politics described by more than one competing narrative. In the case of Palestine, the international community has openly supported and funded the State of Israel lured by the Israeli narrative and the Zionist ideology, and has decided to ignore the brutality of the occupation with fatal consequences.

The Construction of Women’s Identities in Palestine The Palestinian National Identity Theories of nationalism and national identity have tended to ignore women and their gendered experiences, locating them in the private domain which is deemed politically irrelevant. In the case of Palestine, however, the definition of a collective national identity becomes ambiguous given the lack of international recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state. Due to the urgency and prioritization of the nation’s resistance against the settler-colonial project, Palestinian women participated actively and some became leaders in the national struggle (Abu-Duhou, 2003). Particularly in the context of resistance, holding to a national identity and the pride that comes with it becomes a crucial aspect in the lives of Palestinian women under occupation. As a result, social conditioning and constant negotiation of their role in society has become an integral part of identity construction. According to La Barbera (2014: 3), “identity is the result of the negotiation of personal given conditions, social context, and relationships, and institutional frameworks”. As society constantly evolves, identities are discursive and multi-layered rather than fixed or stable and cannot be described solely as one experience at one point in time (La Barbera, 2014). Therefore, identities are socially constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed through discourse and manipulation and need to be treated as a complex and shifting part of human experience (Khodary & Salah, 2020). It is important to mention that identities among Palestinian women stand in relation to the Palestinian collective identity and nationalism. In other words, the question of

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identity of Palestinian women is intimately connected to the nation’s struggle and collective effort to restore the Palestinian culture (Sa’di, 2002).

Motherhood and the Palestinian National Struggle Despite somewhat equally joining the national struggle for liberation and independence the Palestinian nationalist narrative continues to differentiate between masculinity and femininity on the basis of traditional gender roles. In this socially constructed role which is often determined by conservative images of motherhood, Palestinian mothers are devalued and their bodies are reduced to a machine for producing sons for the revolution (Abu-Duhou, 2003). Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat referred to the womb of the Palestinian woman as “the best weapon of the Palestinian people” (Hamamra, 2020: 248) not only putting pressure on females to produce children to fight but also objectifying them in Palestinian society. In 2002 Arafat gave a speech to over a thousand Palestinian women stating, “you are my army of roses that will crush Israeli tanks … you are the hope of Palestine. You will liberate your husbands, fathers, and sons from oppression” (Bailey, 2014: 23). It is striking that Arafat did not include Palestinian women themselves as being freed from oppression as if only men suffer from such conditions and fight while the women’s worth is determined by what she can do for men. In this conception of what women can offer for the Palestinian national struggle, their agency as individuals and Palestinians is denied altogether, relegating their role in the future of their nation and state as one subordinate to men. Women become powerless and have little control over their own sexual and reproductive decisions in a culture where “children are considered a sign of male virility and the only sign of a woman’s social achievement” (Abu-Duhou, 2003: 87). Therefore, this concept of objectification disregards motherhood’s emotional and affective dimensions. As mothers aim to provide a safe and secure environment for their children, it is part of their assigned role to support the children’s exploration of their environment. Especially in the context of political violence and the nation’s struggle, it becomes challenging for mothers to monitor their children’s whereabouts and activities that may take place in unsafe conditions. Moreover, as the children grow and become more independent, the mother may shift her focus to assisting in the child’s development of self-regulatory behavior. In this ever-changing role, the mothers struggle to balance protection with freedom (Akesson, 2015). The situation becomes more critical when investigating the narratives of Palestinian mothers whose children have been martyred, which is understood socially as being killed by Israeli soldiers or citizens. Mother’s voices are often muted as they have been accused of actively encouraging their children to commit acts of violent extremism or engage in resistance activities in dangerous and violent environments.

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While few studies have shown the severity of psychological traumas among Palestinian mothers, ample documentation shows the brutality, hardships, and trauma Palestinian women have to endure in general (Shalhoub-Kevorkian, 2003).

Bereaved Mothers In Palestinian national discourse, mothers play an important role in producing fighters and reproducing the ideology of martyrdom, istishad, while celebrating their sons’ death for nationhood. They are responsible for proliferating the national discourse that forms the Palestinian collective identity through transmitting stories to the next generations, promoting abstract ideals of heroism and sacrifice (Hamamra, 2021). To this day women are represented as cultural bearers while men are liberators or protectors of their homeland. Loadenthal points out that “the mother is expected to not only continuously birth children – fighting an ongoing demographic war with the Israeli populace  – but eventually sacrifice those children for the nationalist agenda” (Hamamra, 2020: 248). Palestinian mothers are responsible for reproducing a new generation in which death for nation and statehood is justified and promoted. They are expected to raise their children “to become fighters and eventually encourage them to sacrifice themselves for the sake of God and Palestine” (Hamamra, 2020: 248). While Palestinian nationalism acknowledges mother’s role as the biological and cultural reproducers of the nation, women are encouraged to validate the national and religious discourse of martyrdom through suppressing “feminine expressions” of grief or condemnation of acts of violence. These discourses serve to “prevent women from any opposition to either religion or the national collective” (Hamamra, 2020: 249). Palestinian women are thus given the responsibility to contribute to the fight against occupation and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians through producing fighters while at the same time being conditioned to accept and promote a reductionist narrative of what it means to be a woman which discourages them to rebel or challenge societal norms. Traditionally, masculine conceptions of the notions of resistance seem to stand in contradiction with women’s prescribed duty to uphold the traditional constructions of femininity.

 tories of Loss and Healing from Palestinian Mothers S in Am’ari Refugee Camp This chapter aims to explore a variety of questions: How do Palestinian mothers view their role in their community? How has living under occupation affected their lives? How does the reality of occupation interact with gender norms? How do Palestinian mothers cope with their traumatic experiences? What empowers them

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and gives them the strength to keep going? Who supports them and how? What brings them joy? For this research, a focus group discussion in Arabic with a total of 19 Palestinian mothers was conducted. Each of these women, including the nine who were individually interviewed, is part of a women’s center in Am’ari Refugee Camp outside of Ramallah. Considering the sensitivity of the topic, pseudonyms have been used to protect the participants’ identities. The majority of the women and families living in the Am’ari Camp were displaced there in 1948 when the State of Israel was founded. Am’ari Camp was officially established in 1949 and is one of the smallest refugee camps in terms of land size in the West Bank, giving rise to challenges such as overcrowding, unemployment, and poor living conditions. Much of the existing infrastructure in the camp cannot handle the increasing population, water and sewerage systems are overburdened, dropout rates are some of the highest in the region, and financial support is very scarce (UNRWA, 2022). Additionally, residents have experienced violence from Israeli settlers who storm the camp and destroy property, as well as from the Israeli military, who detains mostly men and boys, and in the worst cases kills them. Yet, psychological support remains nearly non-existent. The first field visit to the camp was held in mid-April 2022, 2  weeks into Ramadan. On this day as well as the weeks before dozens had been wounded during violent attacks of Israeli soldiers at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of the holiest sites in Islam, and a place where tens of thousands of Palestinians go to pray. Access to the Haram al-Sharif compound where Al-Aqsa is located has been restricted creating increased tensions, which left hundreds of people, mostly Palestinians, injured and detained. Inevitably, these events affected Palestinians all over the world, sparking renewed anger and frustration. During the focus group discussion which started with five women, the attacks from Israeli soldiers were the first topics brought up. The atmosphere was somewhat lively and passionate despite the frustrations and pain in the women’s voices. Loud chatter filled the room, and more and more women joined the meeting eager to share their experiences and powerful emotions. Their message is clear: “Israelis stole our land. The soldiers broke into our homes, stomped our food, beat us, and broke our stuff … they want to force us to leave our land, but even if they take our sons, we will stay. We will stay here; we will never leave,” says one of the women. The interviewed women are all housewives, and the majority of these women are mothers of martyrs, have children in prison, or both. Whenever they were asked about Palestine or Palestinian women, they started cheering and unanimously agreed, “We are strong, we are the strongest people on this planet. After we die, people will continue to stay on this land and fight. This land is ours. Palestine will be free inshallah (God willing).”1 At this point, the room was filled with excitement and passion. “We must resist” they shout across the room. Despite their strong passion to resist and to stay on their land, these women’s lives in the camp have been far from easy. Being refugees in their own country, the women reflected on the psychological and physical effects of living under

 Participant, in discussion with the authors, April 18, 2022.

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occupation, “life is hard and full of pain and suffering. All of us are sick and tired. We cannot walk on our legs; our hearts are weak.”2 The collective passion that was felt initially soon started to vanish as individual conversations began; “there is no freedom for us Palestinians. We do not have any rights, no access to what we need and what belongs to us. They took everything from us,” says Umm Dia.3 The following chapters will present some of the women’s individual stories in an attempt to amplify their voices, understand their feelings toward motherhood, and provide insights into their lives in the context of violence, trauma, and grief.

Collective Struggle and Shared Suffering In December 2021, Israeli forces shot and killed Fatima’s 25-year-old son Hamza mistaking him for another young man they intended to target. The soldiers were looking for a Palestinian who had attacked an Israeli settlement, but ended up shooting at the wrong car which Hamza sat in. “It was a normal day like any other”, Fatima describes. Hamza had just gone shopping with his fiancée. Israelis claimed they had killed the right person but it was later revealed that they mixed up the car. His friends who were with him survived but he was killed. There was no reconciliation for Fatima and no repercussions for the murderers of her son. She still cannot accept that he is gone, saying “I still believe he might return one day.”4 Processing her trauma and coming to terms with it has been incredibly difficult. During the interview, Fatima reflected at her life. She lost both her parents when she was in her 20s. Her mother suffered from psychological conditions after her son died in a car accident and another one was imprisoned. Fatima says her mother “was in a psychological shock. We went to different doctors but no one could help her because she did not have any physical illness, she suffered emotionally.”5 This emotional pain became so strong that she stopped talking to her family and had mental breakdowns until she eventually passed away at the age of 45. At that time Fatima had built up her life in Jordan but later returned to Palestine in 2000 because she wanted her children to receive the Palestinian ID. After her son Hamza’s death, she received considerable support from her family especially her sisters who would not leave her side. She recounted that family including her eight other children distracted her and helped her feel less lonely. Nevertheless, Fatima keeps looking at her martyred son’s photos she placed all around the house and thinks about him “all the time.” With pain in her eyes, she said, “it is difficult being a mother here. It is very tiring and hard to raise children … what would make me

 Ibid.  Umm Dia, in discussion with the authors and Maria Alkhaldi, Am’ari Camp, May 10, 2022. 4  Fatima, in discussion with the authors and Maria Alkhaldi, Am’ari Camp, May 10, 2022. 5  Ibid. 2 3

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happy is to see my family, my boys and girls happy and for Palestine to be free. Inshallah.”6 Zahra, a close friend of Fatima and a mother of eight, lost her son when he was killed by Israeli soldiers in 2014. She did not wish to mention any details about his killing. After this loss, Zahra did not enjoy daily activities such as cooking anymore. She became physically ill as an outcome of her psychological trauma. She shut herself off and did not want to see anyone. She distanced herself from her husband, slept on the couch for weeks, and blamed him for their son’s death. Her husband reacted coldly, she explains, less emotional than her which made it harder for her to cope with the loss. She expected her husband to have the same reaction as her after their son was killed. The different reactions to trauma made her feel resentment and anger toward him but above all, it made her sad; sad about the fact that he did not show many emotions and that she could not share her emotions with him, that they felt somewhat out of place. Perhaps it was difficult for her to acknowledge that grief and overcoming trauma are expressed in different ways. Eventually, Zahra started receiving psychological help and was given the opportunity to attend weekly gatherings with other women who also lost their sons, an effort organized by a rehabilitation center in Ramallah. These sessions were a vital part of her recovery journey as she slowly started to process what happened and gain trust in others and in herself to repair her relationships with her husband and family. In the beginning, she felt shy to talk about her emotions with other people. She was not used to it. However, over time she felt more comfortable and acknowledged the added value as she realized how empowering it feels to be around women who go through the same experience: They [the organizers] asked us to tell our stories and invited us for picnics. At first, I felt ashamed to talk about what happened, but I started to open up. It became easier to talk to them. We met every Thursday which became a special day that I looked forward to every week. The women still visit me sometimes.7

Sessions like these have made a positive impact on Zahra’s emotional well-being. She was grateful for the opportunity that the organization gave her and felt as though she regained some control over her life and her emotions as she learned that this shared experience became a part of the women’s identities, and that she does not have to feel scared or ashamed. It is evident that the consequences and impacts of the women’s individual experiences cannot be understood without consideration of the collective struggle whether that is social, political, cultural, or psychological. In a life under occupation, violence, and poverty, raising children and losing them has become part of a collective process as experiences and coping efforts of individuals and their communities are interwoven. Therefore, sharing stories and thus pain with other women becomes a crucial part of processing and coping with grief and loss. Kefah, one of the other  Ibid.  Zahra, in discussion with the authors and Maria Alkhaldi, Am’ari Camp, May 10, 2022.

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women from the center confirms this, “knowing that someone goes through the same or has it even worse than you makes it easier [to deal with loss].”8 Sharing stories helped the women to build connections with one another despite or perhaps because of the pain they feel. Their visits to prison, which would often take an entire day, were described as a “journey with friends.” Kefah also calls such visits the “prisoner’s club” expressing her gratitude for the women who became her friends and make the visits more bearable. However, at the same time, having people around her and sharing everything with them has become normalized which does not necessarily mean that it is consistent a source of joy. Kefah notes, “I don’t mind it [sharing feelings]. It is something normal, it has become routine. Everyone in this camp goes through the same realities. I have a prisoner son, someone else has a martyr, that one has two prisoners; it’s like that really. It’s natural to talk about what I feel.”9 Her quote suggests that she accepts sharing emotions as the norm, but to what extent it is an active decision of hers and whether that provides her with genuine comfort remains unclear. She continued by saying that people expect her to move on with life but at the same time does not talk about any societal pressure she feels. Violence, trauma, and suffering have become somewhat normalized and acceptance of this reality has become part of the coping process. Kefah shifted the conversation again, as many women do when asking about their feelings, and says she accepted her circumstances. As a mother of seven, she states: Children are everything. They give us hope. They give us life … I wish them a better life than this. I wish them a happy life; a life without fear, without occupation. That is the most important thing, for them to be happy and for everything they want to be possible. A mother only wishes everything good for her children.10

Her eyes were filling with tears, thus the interview was stopped.

Lack of Support Evidently, not every woman was given the opportunity or felt comfortable sharing their traumatic experiences and feelings with others. Considering that the mothers of the camp have lost their children in different time periods, many were not able to express their emotions in organized sessions, such as Zahra, much less speak to a communal outsider. In fact, the majority of women received very little support, whether financial or emotional, or from governmental or non-governmental organizations.

 Kefah, in discussion with Lili Broekhuysen and Maria Alkhaldi, Am’ari Camp, April 28, 2022.  Ibid. 10  Ibid. 8 9

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Unlike Zahra, Samira felt less positive about sharing her feelings with other women. She explains, “I feel frustrated and sad, but I cannot talk about my feelings with other people. They tell me that this is God’s decision. I had to hide my suffering and I feel lonely.”11 Due to a lack of access to medical care, Samira’s husband passed away 27 years ago, leaving behind a family of five daughters and two sons. The oldest son Omar, whom she describes as taking on the role of the father of the family was killed during the Second Intifada when he was 21  years old. Samira remembers him as a strong, brave, and hard-working man. She remembers the day Israeli soldiers invaded the camp shooting at men who resisted. Many people were on the streets, throwing stones and chaos broke out. A group of women came to Samira’s house to tell her that her son is injured. Zeid, a close friend of Omar brought him to the hospital and was later killed. Samira rushed to the hospital together with another woman only to find her son in a coma with a bullet in his head. She started talking to her son and describes how he felt her presence as he was making soft noises: I knew he could hear me. I stayed by his side, but I knew that his head was as good as dead. His body was boiling hot; his face was like the moon. He was sweating. He smiled. I left the hospital and returned home because I was scared that the soldiers would attack my children at home. Omar’s situation was critical. People told me he will die, and I collapsed. I could not take it anymore. It felt like I was in a coma myself.12

When Omar died, Zeid’s mother came to mourn together with Samira, however, Samira received little support beyond this. With sons married and responsible for their own families, they were unable to financially support her. Samira needed to work relentlessly to support her family as a widow. People have let her down many times, she explains, including family members who never supported her when she was in need despite that providing financial and child-rearing support is common in Palestinian families and thus, her own family has come to feels like “strangers” to her. Samira feels tired, her heart is “filled with pain and there is no space for joy.”13 In the context of violence, martyrdom, and suffering, the quest for joy and happiness is extremely difficult. Rawan, a mother of five, points out: We are limited here. Things around here don’t work the same way as in other countries. In order to feel joy, you need to have an easy conscience. Under the occupation that is impossible. The occupation causes you constant pain and unrest. For example, you sit at home comfortably, then you hear on the news there is a new martyr. You are affected and you remember your own martyr. You hear about a prisoner; it is the same story. This causes constant discomfort in your life.14

Instead of normalizing her circumstances, Rawan observes the hardships of life under occupation. Her quote reveals the difficulties of finding and experiencing genuine joy in an environment marked by violence and instability. Umm Dia adds:  Samira, in discussion with the authors, Am’ari Camp, April 21, 2022.  Ibid. 13  Ibid. 14  Rawan, in discussion with Lili Broekhuysen and Maria Alkhaldi, Am’ari Camp, April 28, 2022. 11 12

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Nothing makes me happy. Everything reminds me of my son. Every time I cook dawali I remember him because it was his favorite food. I keep telling myself, I wish my son was here so he can join me. I try not to think about him, but I cannot help it. I put a plate aside for him to save his share without realizing it. When my sons ask who it is for, I just tell them it is an extra plate.15

Umm Dia’s son was only 15  years old when he was killed by Israeli soldiers in 2000, though she still speaks about her son as if he was alive. Umm Dia’s other two sons are in jail, one of whom was heavily injured and to this day has not received proper medical treatment. She tells the story of her son who is currently in jail for the rest of his life: My son was in the car when the Israelis threw bombs. I saw what happened on TV where they mistakenly said my son had been killed. I rushed to the hospital. He was badly injured and lost one of his eyes because of the explosion. … the doctor messed up and had to amputate his leg. After he returned home the Israelis came to arrest him. I hid him on the balcony, but they searched my house and kicked me out. When I heard my son scream, I knew they found him. They took him to prison and did not take care of his wounds or any of his needs. They don’t care about these things in jail. His injuries got worse; he went blind. They completely neglected him and my calls for help. I talked to human rights organizations and many NGOs, but no one helped me. It has been 20 years since I demanded help and support, but nothing happens.16

Umm Dia expressed her deep disappointment and frustration saying that she is being stripped of her right as mother to care for her child. She gave an example of a dehumanizing experience during one of her prison visits to see her son: Israeli prison guards asked her to undress in front of cameras and other men for a security check. She refused to do this as she felt that the soldiers were trying to take away her dignity, and she demanded the cameras be turned off and to be checked by a woman. Because this affair took a long time, the other Palestinian mothers became angry at her as she was holding them back from seeing their prisoners. They were scared to be too late for the bus because there is only one bus per day that brings them to the prison and back. This experience made Umm Dia realize that even her own people can turn against her just because she stands up for her rights. She expressed anger and criticism, but realized that there is not much she can do except turns to God. God helps her to understand things are beyond her control.

The Role of Religion and Nationalism Especially after a traumatic experience, religion has the potential to offer and provide a new meaning to life. In particular, God can serve as an alternative figure for attachment as religion fills the space of deprivation (Diab & Daas, 2013). During the interviews, women referred to God as a source of strength and support. They

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 Umm Dia, interview.  Ibid.

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explained that in Islam, martyrs who die for a just cause will go directly to Paradise. In the Palestinian context, where the vast majority of the West Bank’s population is Muslim, the Islamically rooted notion of martyrdom is most prevalent. Martyrdom, istishad, in the name of God, is praised within Palestinian society saying that martyrs are alive and did not perish. Believers should not suffer when they face the loss of a loved one because God will bestow on the martyr a pleasant life in Paradise. The belief that God fated these families to have a martyr and the belief that these martyrs will ascend directly to Paradise were identified as crucial beliefs which help the women cope with their losses and suffering. Zahra, who lost two of her sons, one as a martyr and the other from natural causes, stated: “God chose this fate for us. It was meant to be. When someone is martyred, it is different from when they die because of a normal accident. It is easier to accept knowing that it was God’s will.”17 Samira explained: “The people in the camp comforted me saying that I need to be patient; that this is our life and even though it is hard, God decided this for us. It is our fate, and everything that comes from God is good. God helped me to process what happened, and to be understanding and patient.”18 Several women note that it is common for people in the community to come to the mother of a martyr and to console her by saying that God chose this life for her and that this is her fate. Depending on one’s individual relationship with God, the belief in His promises can lead to a lower sense of responsibility and control over one’s own life. This attachment to God following the loss of a child sees some mothers increasingly dependent on and devoted to religion in general. In this religious and social discourse, mothers are given the title Umm Al-Shaheed, meaning mother of the martyr, a title which signifies heroism, maternal sacrifice, and honor. These mothers are expected to be proud of their sons’ death, as well as of other martyrs, and those who are in prison and continue resisting. Thus, within the context of the majority Muslim Palestinian society, martyrdom is not only to be accepted but is an occasion which calls for celebration. It is not uncommon for Palestinian mothers to encourage their sons to fight and resist, despite the nearly inevitably painful outcomes. Umm Dia expressed gratitude to God when she found out her son was martyred, “alhamdulillah,” she repeated, meaning “praise be to God”. Such reactions can be understood as a coping strategy rather than an actual sense of gratitude for the loss of their sons. Scholars have criticized the role of religion as a tool to reinforce a nationalist agenda. Masarwi describes, “religion as a source of supreme authority enables nationalism to construct and shape the understanding of bereavement as a part of the collective memory” (2019: 88). This concept is referred to as a “manipulative process in which agents of nationalism use certain parts of religion to further a political goal in a society” (Masarwi, 2019: 88). Nationalism and religion are thus presented as interwoven parts of the experience of Palestinian mothers as motherhood

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 Zahra, interview.  Samira, interview.

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is defined by two overlapping and dominant narratives: one that praises martyrdom in the name of God, and the other that celebrates resistance, maternal honor, and sacrifice in the name of Palestine. In other words, the religious-national discourse views motherhood in occupied Palestine as an inseparable part of the national collective identity shaped by patriarchal constructions and patriotism. Nonetheless, during the interviews the majority of women did not solely express feelings of pride and honor at the expense of their other emotions such as pain and anger, nor did they show interest in suppressing such realities. In fact, showing their suffering openly is described as a tool for mothers to resist and come to terms with their trauma. It is striking that the idealized notion of martyrdom for the national cause has helped mothers bear their sufferings to some degree; however, it does not seem to provide a genuine long-term source of joy for the interviewed mothers. Zahra voices her pain, “My heart is broken and I cannot see any pleasure in my life. I cannot find any brightness.” Fatima adds, “It still hurts every time, even in the happy moments. Our happiness is incomplete because we are in pain, and we live under constant stress.”19 Therefore, while the idea that their sons died for the Palestinian cause and that martyrdom is praised by Islam encourages the women to process their trauma and move on, it does not adequately represent the heterogeneity of the Palestinian experience of motherhood. Despite not directly addressing the pressure from the dominant narrative on the role of Palestinian mothers, dissatisfaction with prescribed gender-roles was evident through their expressions of grief, anger, and resentment.

The Role of Mothers Identity, Empowerment, and Resistance When reflecting on the role of women compared to men, the interviewed mothers responded: “Women are stronger! We are the ones who raise our children to be strong, we open the doors to the soldiers, and we resist. We teach our children to not be scared [of the Israelis].” It is evident that the Palestinian national struggle has become a priority in the mothers’ lives as their caretaking responsibilities include teaching strength to resist and fight the occupation. Instead of being powerless and subordinate to men, they become agents of resistance themselves and express feelings of pride and determination when referring to Palestine. Aisha comes from a family of resistance fighters; her grandfather and his side of the family as well as her brothers used to be part of a resistance group and lived in the mountains to hide from Israeli soldiers. Aisha learned from a young age how to protect herself and used to throw rocks at the soldiers together with her friends,

19

 Zahra, interview.

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“that is how I grew up”, she said.20 During the First Intifada, Israeli soldiers killed her brother at the age of 17. Her family hid his corpse because they did not want his body to be in the hands of the Israelis. They eventually buried him next to his grandmother because it was a safe place where the Israelis would not come to dig up the grave and steal the body as they often do. Shortly after the burial, soldiers came to interrogate Aisha’s family, demanding her son’s corpse, after the soldiers had already dug up empty graves and destroyed flowers at the graveyard. Aisha’s sister refused to tell them and was shot in the leg after she had pushed one of the soldiers to leave their house, “She was not afraid,” said Aisha as she expressed her admiration for her sister. During the interview, Aisha was primarily focused on telling her brother’s and her family’s story rather than her own. As in other interviews, it was difficult to direct the conversation toward her personal feelings and well-being. She talked about her son’s slow recovery when the Israelis shot him after attending a protest and how she feels proud that he defended his country. She then continued to talk about the importance of being a mother who gives back to the community, “the mother is the one who raises the children, not the father. It is important that she takes over control and teaches her children to do good things for their country and their community.”21 By focusing on what she does for her children and other people in her community, Aisha’s story strengthens the idea that the mother’s identity and worth are largely defined by what they can contribute to society reproducing both the patriarchal and Palestinian national discourse. She emphasized that it is necessary to teach children to be active in Palestinian society and that volunteering in her community brings joy and meaning to her life. In helping others and contributing to improving Palestinian lives, she finds herself expressing agency and using her role as a mother for the greater good. In comparison to the role of fathers, Palestinian mothers have a significantly larger influence on the children’s upbringing, especially considering that most Palestinian women are stay-at-home mothers. Zahra pointed out, “I feel that fathers are not as worried about their children as mothers. Mothers care more about their children. They are more engaged in raising them, they are always at home with them and take care of them.”22 This can be seen as a result of the patriarchal and conservative society in which Palestinians, especially from refugee camps, live. Having been socially conditioned by these values, the interviewed women emphasized their caretaking role as mothers and are proud that they are the ones in charge of raising the next generations. This remains a crucial part of their motherhood experience giving them a sense of meaning. Rawan believes Palestinian women, especially mothers, have an important role in society: Of course, women have an active role. She is what completes the man … Palestinian women defend their country and their family and fight for their daily bread. Women fight for

 Aisha, in discussion with the authors and Maria Alkhaldi, Am’ari Camp, April 28, 2022.  Ibid. 22  Zahra, interview. 20 21

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everything, especially mothers. A mother wants to secure her children and her family in general. This is the ultimate goal. We Palestinian mothers always have patience and courage. We work hard [to cope with challenges].23

Raising children is one of the most important responsibilities that a mother has, however, it is often not valued enough according to Rawan. Many women remain invisible in society and only those who work in the government or big organizations are seen. This puts pressure on women to build up their resilience as they have to work harder than their male counterparts to make themselves heard. According to Rawan, “A Palestinian woman is always in the public space. She resists and she fights. All the pressure is on her and she sustains the pressure of life, ranging from her family and things external to her family. She is always present.”24 What is striking here is that Rawan distinctly opposes the binary gender division whereby men are the fighters and are identified with the public sphere, and women are relegated to the background and are identified with the private sphere. In both public and private, women experience different forms of pressure whether this comes from the national discourse or patriarchal norms. Rather than victimizing women and dismissing their feelings, Rawan emphasizes the need to acknowledge the importance of women and especially mothers and their voices. Notably, when asking women about their experience of motherhood, none of the interviewees mentioned any support or protection offered by their husbands or other male members of the family. In fact, they challenge the conservative gender roles which determine that men are the protectors and women are solely responsible for producing fighters. This is strongly reflected in Samira’s quote when she describes her feelings about being a mother and moves away from the narrative that women are dependent on men, emphasizing her own strength: I do everything for my children; I am the one who encourages them and teaches them to be strong. I do not ask anyone for money or help because I have dignity. I do not want to rely on anyone else… I am proud that I built everything myself and manage to take care of my family. I made everything possible for my son; I spent my money from work to build him an apartment. People believe men are the ones that take care of the family, but I am the strong one, and I did everything myself which makes people judge me and be jealous.25

Samira openly criticizes her community and expresses her need for independence and self-determination. Her story highlights her willpower and resilience, but also an immense amount of suffering that has dominated her life, especially in the time since her son was killed. Instead of celebrating her martyred son, she describes the pain and the trauma it has caused her, “I feel sad and angry, but I cannot tell other people so I keep it to myself. I must hide my suffering. I feel lonely and life is tiring. Palestinian women suffer a lot. But I am proud that I take care of my family despite everything. I help them stand on their feet.”26 This is a testament to how essential

 Rawan, interview.  Ibid. 25  Ibid. 26  Samira, interview. 23 24

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helping and supporting one’s family and children is to a Palestinian mother’s experience, and even takes priority over their mental well-being.

Conclusion As previously mentioned, in order to understand how Palestinian mothers experience the construct of motherhood and relate to their identities to the wider context of political violence and occupation, their experiences must be placed within the Palestinian national discourse as well as the patriarchal social context. It must be emphasized that Palestinian mothers are not a homogenous group of people and therefore motherhood should not be reduced to one universal, fixed, or straightforward experience. The interviewed women showed different reactions and coping mechanisms to their traumatic experiences. For some of them, sharing their feelings openly with their community has become an act of self-empowerment as they feel validated and supported. Going through a collectively shared experience and showing solidarity with other women has given them strength and encouragement to continue to live. However, for others, being surrounded by their community felt suffocating and the pressure of other’s expectations led them to retreat from society and distance themselves from their would-be support systems. While the women rarely criticized the society as such, and to a degree normalized their situation by saying that “this is their fate,” they expressed their anger and frustration with life under occupation and implying the pressure they feel to not only be the backbone of the family, but also the reproducers of the Palestinian national collectives. Regarding the women’s views on their role in society as Ummahat Al-Shuhada’,27 this chapter identified two dominant interwoven narratives that shaped this: nationalism and religion. Both narratives have demanded women to “stay strong” and “accept” that their sons were martyred for a greater cause. Many women mentioned that turning to God has helped them cope with their trauma. However, instead of celebrating maternal honor and sacrifice, the Palestinian mothers showed feelings of deep sadness, depression, and pain. Even though to varying degrees, these women found meaning in their loss through recapitulating the main points of dominant national and religious discourses on martyrdom, processing their trauma remains an ongoing struggle. This should be analyzed from an additional point of view where agency and resistance are acknowledged as central. Resistance takes many different forms depending on what it is women are resisting. By fighting the occupation, throwing rocks, and engaging in violence, they resist the abovementioned patriarchal views on femininity in the context of Palestinian resistance. However, when expressing grief over their loss, they oppose the Palestinian national discourse

27

 This is the Arabic plural term of Umm Al-Shaeed, meaning mothers of martyrs.

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which encourages mothers to sacrifice their sons to liberate their land. As this research has shown, these means of resisting are not mutually exclusive. As a multifaceted experience, resistance has therefore become an essential, indispensable part of Palestinian women’s identity shaping Palestinian motherhood. Moreover, it highlights, that Palestinian mothers, despite the struggles and conditions they are confronted with, are not powerless nor incapable. To what extent these women are complicit with the nationalist movement as shaped by patriarchal values does not define their self-sense of empowerment and agency as both are individually defined concepts and expressed in different ways. Despite the socially constructed subordinate role of women in the Palestinian national discourse, it is clear that the interviewed women acknowledge the power of motherhood not only as a way to navigate through their situation and their emotions, but also as an instrument to counter the occupation and political violence, thus becoming agents of change. Lastly, rather than viewing Palestinian women as victims without agency, it is important that their voices are heard paving the way for empowerment and change as well as psychological support. Acknowledgments  This research was made possible by the Jerusalem Center for Women. The interviews were conducted with and translated by Maria Alkhaldi and Fadwa Al Shaer, and the chapter was edited with the help of Melissa Garand, all of whom are staff at the Center in Ramallah.

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Hamamra, B. (2020). Mothers of martyrs: Rethinking Shakespeare’s Volumnia’s collective motherhood from a Palestinian perspective. Psychodynamic Practice, 26(3), 248–258. https://doi. org/10.1080/14753634.2020.1762715 Hamamra, B. (2021). Palestinian bereaved mothers of martyrs: Religious and national discourses of sacrifice and bereavement. Women & Criminal Justice, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.108 0/08974454.2021.1902458 Holt, M. (2003). Palestinian women, violence, and the peace process. Development in Practice, 13(2/3), 223–238. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4029594 Khodary, Y., & Salah, N. (2020). Palestinian women’s agency. Peace Review, 32(1), 86–94. https:// doi.org/10.1080/10402659.2020.1823573 La Barbera, M. (2014). Identity and Migration: An Introduction. Identity And Migration In Europe: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, 1–13 Masarwi, M. (2019). The bereavement of martyred Palestinian Children: Gendered, religious and national perspectives (Palgrave Studies in cultural heritage and conflict). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­030-­18087-­4 Sa’di, A. H. (2002). Catastrophe, memory and identity: Al-Nakbah as a component of Palestinian identity. Israel Studies, 7(2), 175–198. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30245590 Shalhoub-Kevorkian, N. (2003). Liberating voices: The political implications of Palestinian mothers narrating their loss. Women’s Studies International Forum, 26(5), 391–407. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.wsif.2003.08.007 Sjoberg, L., & Gentry, C. (2007). Mothers, monsters, whores: Women’s violence in global politics. Zed Books Ltd.. UNRWA. (n.d.). Am’ari Camp. Retrieved June 16, 2022., from https://www.unrwa.org/ where-­we-­work/west-­bank/amari-­camp

In the Shadow of Genocide: Mothers of Srebrenica and New Social Power Jasmina Gavrankapetanović-Redžić

Abstract Founded by survivors of the Srebrenica genocide (July 1995), the Movement of Mothers of Srebrenica and Žepa Enclaves Association was established in 1996 with the goal of finding missing family members. Since then, the Association has played a significant political role, both on a national and international level. As the only recognized site of genocide against its majoritarian Muslim population in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Srebrenica represents a keystone in the making of the post-conflict political identity of the country and of its different ethnic groups. This chapter argues that the Association exerts corrective morality through its social power to remedy the muddy waters of daily Bosnian politics in accordance with its goals, namely: of establishing the facts and the responsibilities for the genocide in the UN-protected area of Srebrenica and Žepa; of preserving and protecting the memory of those who were killed by Bosnian Serb army and paramilitary troops; and of fighting negationism. While members of the Association are slowly disappearing due to old age, this chapter argues that the political institutionalization of memory, or the ‘slow memory turn’ (Wüstenberg, Toward Slow Memory Studies,  59–68, 2023), represents a key political factor, especially within the Bosnian Muslim body politic. For analysis, the chapter relies on Yifat Gutman and Jenny Wüstenberg’s topology for comparative research on memory activists (Mem Stud, 1–17, 2021), Elissa Helms for women’s activism among the Bosnian Muslims in the aftermath of the war in Bosnia, and Orli Fridman’s work on memory activism in the former Yugoslavia (2004). Through interviews with its members, this chapter attempts to shed light on the extent of the Association’s social power, built on the victimhood-motherhood and memory activism-political activism nexus.

J. Gavrankapetanović-Redžić (*) Academy of Fine Arts, University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Ü. Arıboğan, H. Khelghat-Doost (eds.), Constructing Motherhood Identity Against Political Violence, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36538-6_9

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Introduction The decision of how we will remember something is inherently social, and if you will, political. The decision of what historical facts make up our history is social and political. (…) I think there is a whole range of social practices that are organised for that way of remembering Srebrenica, around that kind of antimemory. It’s antimemory, that’s how I see it. (Emir Suljagić, interview with Saša Rukavina, 2022) There are many who will not experience earthly punishment but will bear it on their conscience. (Kada Hotić, interview with author, March 2022)

The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992–1995) is one of five post-Yugoslav wars through which the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia imploded, and on whose remains several independent states formed: Slovenia (1991), North Macedonia (1991), Croatia (1991), Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992), and Kosovo (1998). Montenegro claimed its independence in 2006 without an open conflict with its Serbian neighbor. While the war, or the armed conflict, is over, there are still significant remnants of conflict-related issues (and policies) between the new states as well as within them, with the exception of Slovenia. In the context of new post-­ Cold War attempts to violently reorganize territories and power relations, such as what we are witnessing in Ukraine today, Bosnia and Herzegovina represents, unfortunately, an example in which violence, gender, and national recognition are constitutive elements of fluid power relations. Before 1992, Bosnia and Herzegovina was a multi-ethnic republic within a multi-ethnic federal socialist state, and it remained multi-ethnic after the 1990s war. The political and administrative structure on which the state functions today was formed following the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement (1995) and represents a complex system built upon ethnic lines redrawn according to violently ethnically cleansed territories. To put it briefly, the termination of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1945–1991) created room for new nation-states. Violence was used with the goal of achieving permanent divisions between ethnic categories and with the goal of thwarting attempts to rebuild trust and normalize interethnic relations (Gavrankapetanović-Redžić, 2018, 64) within the ethnically mixed generations that formed during socialism. One of the key events that marked the late stage of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina was the Srebrenica genocide. In the beginning of July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces and paramilitaries intensified their military offensive against the UN-protected enclave. A large concentration of Bosnian Muslim civilians fled to the UN base in Potočari hoping to be shielded by the 300-manned Dutch battalion stationed in Srebrenica. On July 11, 1995, when the expected military intervention from the UN and NATO didn’t concretize and Srebrenica fell, Bosnian Serb forces started the ethnic cleansing of the town by separating the women from the men and boys. Some of the men attempted to escape and tried to reach Tuzla, a safe haven, on foot, and a small number safely reached Tuzla and other Bosnian Muslim-­controlled territories, but about 8000 men and boys were systematically executed and buried in mass graves in the days following the fall. With this operation, which Bosnian Serb

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commander Ratko Mladić called a victory over the Turks – in reference to a failed Serbian uprising against the Ottomans in Belgrade in the nineteenth century, he declared Srebrenica Serbian and symbolically gifted the town to the Serbian people.1 Such references to Bosnia’s colonial past are deeply entangled with issues of ethnic group belonging based on confessionalism and attempts during the 1990s to ethnically ‘cleanse’ territories deemed Serb from Bosnian Muslims and Catholics (Croats). While this past was extensively used to legitimize violence during the war, it must not obscure two other aspects of the war in Bosnia, which are located at the intersection of gender and class. Since the main survivors of the Srebrenica genocide were women, it is understandable that they formed groups or organized themselves as non-­governmental organizations in order to integrate processes related to the search for missing, predominantly male, family members. One such organization is the Movement of Mothers of Srebrenica and Žepa Enclaves Association (hereafter Mothers) (est. 1996). According to their webpage: The main reason for the establishment of the Association was due to the desire and needs of the mothers to directly participate in finding out about the fate of those that have disappeared in July of 1995; as well as those that have disappeared in the period between 1992 and 1995  in the regions of Srebrenica, Žepa, Han Pijesak, Rogatica, Vlasenica, Bratunac, Zvornik, Sokolac, Višegrad, and Foča. Over time, the Association’s mission has evolved to include a number of other activities, ranging from their participation in the process of postmortem exhumation, the identification process and burial of victims; to dealing with economic, social, and health issues, as well as education of children of its members.2 Elissa Helms explains that the history of women’s activism in Bosnia, principally regarding Muslim women, is not very well documented, perhaps because before the 1990s war gender was the main identified issue, rather than ethnic differentiation (2003, 53). Since the end of the armed conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, many women’s NGOs have been established. As Helms shows in her work on women’s activism in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the war has tended to essentialize gender and culture (2003, iv). Namely, the work of women’s organizations in the aftermath of the war can be seen as encoded by social hierarchies and women’s wartime experiences and identities (2003, 3). To understand the extent of such issues in the institutionalization of the memory of the Srebrenica genocide, or the slow memory turn (Wüstenberg, 2023), I conducted semi-structured interviews with the president and vice-president of the Mothers, Munira Subašić and Kada Hotić. For analysis, I rely on Yifat Gutman and Jenny Wüstenberg’s topology for comparative research on memory activists (2021, 1–17) and Orli Fridman’s work on memory activism in the former Yugoslavia (2006), particularly the Belgrade-based Women in Black.  For a detailed day to day chronology of events following the fall of Srebrenica, see FAMA Methodology ‘Srebrenica Mapping Genocide’ Education Pack, Retrieved June 25, 2022 from http://srebrenica.famamethodology.net/eng/#home 2  Official website of the Movement of Mothers of Srebrenica and Žepa Enclaves Association. Retrieved June 14, 2022 from http://www.enklave-srebrenica-zepa.org/english.onama.php 1

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While some organizations were established in the aftermath of the war in good faith, others were opportunistic. Since the scale of financing for grass-roots organizations by foreign donors has been greatly reduced due to other international conflicts, many NGOs have stopped operating. However, the Mothers have continued to work on preserving the memory of the Srebrenica genocide. Like a handful of other women’s organizations, such as Women in Black in Serbia, the Mothers have established themselves as an integral part of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s memoryscape. However, the question of continuity in the face of generational shift is inevitable, as members of the Mothers are slowly disappearing, and the question of how this will affect the memory of Srebrenica genocide remains open.

Bosnian Muslim/Bosniak Political Visibility and Violence Just as it can be argued that Ukrainian nation-building was completed with the Russian aggression on Ukraine in February 2022, it can be argued that the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992–1995), and particularly the Srebrenica genocide committed by Serb and Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995,3 cemented the process of Bosniak nationbuilding. A quote by the former Reis ul-Ulema (head of the Ulama) of the Bosnian Islamic Community (Islamska zajednica) is illustrative in understanding the role played by Serb violence against Bosnian Muslims in this process, as Cerić states in an interview with Zeit_Step the magazine of the Austrian Political Academy’s journal in 2004: Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić has done more to awaken Islam in Bosnia than I have achieved in 50 years of missionary work. Following the aggressive atheization by the communist regime after 1945, many were reminded that they were Muslims because of Bosnian Serb crimes against them.4

 Although the most referenced date regarding events in Srebrenica during the Bosnian war is July 11, 1995, it must be emphasised that from April 1992, Srebrenica, Žepa and the surrounding area were deliberately targeted with shelling, and the population, living basically under military siege, was deprived of access to food because all corridors were controlled by the Bosnian Serb army and its paramilitaries. The focus on the events in July 1995 tends to obscure the loss of human life and hardship experienced by the population in the years preceding the genocide. In addition, the targeting of civilians beginning in spring 1992 can be understood as a series of preliminary tactics, of which the July 1995 genocide was the culmination. 4  Radovan Karadžić, former president of the Serb Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and commander of the armed forces of Republika Srpska, was found guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war. See Karadžić Case information sheet (IT-95-5/18). Retrieved April 18, 2022 from https://www.icty.org/case/karadzic Full original quote in German: “Der Reis-ul-Ulema bestätigte, dass es während des Kriegs von 1992 bis 1995 zu einer massenhaften Islamisierung seiner religiösen Mitgläubigen in BosnienHerzegowina gekommen sei. Der frühere Serbische Präsident in Bosnien-Herzegowina, Radovan Karadzic, habe ‘mehr zu dem islamischen Erwachen der Bosniaken beigetragen, als ich es in meiner missionarischen Arbeit in den letzten 50 Jahren vermochte.’” Islamischer Führer in Bosnien-Herzegowina kritisiert Haltung Europas zum Islam | Europa | DW | 05.01.2004. Retrieved May 19, 2022 from https://www.dw.com/de/islamischer-führer-inbosnien-herzegowina-kritisiert-haltung-europas-zum-islam/a-1078565 3

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While this quote emphasizes the awakening of Islam among Bosnian Muslims as a side-effect of the implosion of Yugoslavia and the war that followed, Cerić’s assertion, in fact, highlights the interdependency of religious and national identities with victimization, in the making of the Bosniak nation.5 To understand the historical development of the Bosnian Muslim/Bosniak nation-building process, we must first look back to the year 1878. The political organizing of Bosnian Muslims took place within the scope of two dominant issues  – ethnicity and class. The first, ethnicity, was based on confessionalism as the basis of national and group belonging, and the second, class, was based on economic relations in the context of the redistribution of surplus among the peasantry, who formed nearly 88% of the population, by a small wealthy elite (Purivatra, 1977, 32). In parallel with the decline of the Ottoman Empire’s power grasp over the Balkans, the process of the establishment of political organizations of Bosnian Muslims started as a response to violent and lethal attacks against the Muslim peasantry and landlords in the beginning of the 1900s.6 In his seminal work on the Yugoslav Muslim Organization, Atif Purivatra (1977, 13) writes that 1878 marks the first armed resistance against the AustroHungarians by Bosnian Muslims. Purivatra indicates that the resistance was not merely a military defense of the Ottoman Empire, and Bosnian Muslim interests within it, but also a defense of their homeland Bosnia (ibid). In contrast to nascent Serbian and Croatian statehood in the 1870s, Bosnian Muslims’ difficult transition to the new political paradigm of a Christian, Austro-Hungarian Empire had several ramifications. The principal one was perhaps their merging, of necessity, with one of the dominant bourgeois identities – Serb or Croat – in the early days of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (1918–1929) and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1929–1941), as they were given no formal recognition as a group. The shift to a new political paradigm was not without problems, particularly regarding the legal and political status of Bosnian Muslims, as a deiuris religious minority within the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Karčić, 2008, 63–79). In discussions of Bosnian Muslim political representation and organization, the Yugoslav Muslim Organization (Jugoslovenska muslimanska organizacija) (est. 1919, hereafter JMO) has been the topic of research by several key researchers,

 Although this interdependency is not particular to Bosnian Muslims, and is also applicable to Bosnian Serbs (Orthodox Christians) and Bosnian Croats (Roman Catholics), in the following section I will focus solely on Bosnian Muslims. See Banac, Ivo (1988) Nacionalno pitanje u Jugoslaviji – Porijeklo, Povijest, Politika. Zagreb: Globus. 6  The first was the Main Workers’ Union in B&H (Glavni radnički savez, est. 1906), and the second was the Muslim People’s Organization (Muslimanska narodna organizacija, est. Dec.1906). A couple of years later, in 1908, Muslim Progressive Party (Muslimanska napredna stranka) was founded (Purivatra, 1977, 15–16). 5

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among which Atif Purivatra (1977) and Zlatko Hasanbegović (2012).7 While there are major differences between the JMO and the Mothers, the JMO being a political party established by men (in 1919) who became elected officials, and the Mothers being an NGO constituted of bereaved women (in 1996), both were established in a context of violence.8 A more appropriate example for comparison to the JMO would be the SDA (Stranka demokratske akcije – the Party of Democratic Action).9 In addition, while the JMO was established some 80 years earlier by urban, often university-level educated Bosnian Muslim men in a context of high illiteracy among the rural Muslim population at that time, and among Muslim women (close to 85%) in particular (Erlich Stein, 1971, 332–336), members of the Mothers, who were predominantly widowed or were searching for family members whom they had been told were still alive, are from smaller cities and towns (such as Srebrenica, Žepa, Bratunac) and the surrounding villages, which therefore marks their pre-war and consequently their post-war social identity as rural. This aspect is important to

 Research on Bosnian Muslim political organizing is tightly linked to the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the annexation of Bosnia by the Austro-Hungarian Empire following the Berlin Congress (1878) and the changes of regimes that followed the end of World War I. These changes exerted significant effects on Bosnia and Herzegovina and proved problematic in the long term (regarding territorial integrity, national identity development, etc.). For more on the topic of the development of Bosnian Muslim national identity see: Hadžijahić, Muhamed. (1990). Porijeklo bosanskih Muslimana. Muslimanska biblioteka, Sarajevo: Bosna; Jokanović, Vlado. (1968). Elementi koji su kroz istoriju djelovali pozitivno i negativno na stvaranje bošnjaštva kao nacionalnog pokreta. In: Pregled: časopis zu društvena pitanja.  – Sarajevo: Univ., ISSN 0032-7271, Vol. 58. 1968, 8, pp. 241–263; Redžić, Enver. (1963). Prilozi o nacionalnom pitanju. Sarajevo: Svjetlost; Humo, Avdo. (1970). Istorijski i aktuelni aspekti nacionalnog položaja Muslimana in: Pregled: časopis zu društvena pitanja. – Sarajevo: Univ., Vol. 4, 1970, pp. 429–456; Redžić, Enver. (1970). O posebnosti bosanskih muslimana In: Pregled: časopis zu društvena pitanja  – Sarajevo: Univ., Vol 4, 1970, pp. 457–488. 8  Another organisation that could at first appear as a similar example is the AFŽ, the Women’s Antifascist Front (Anti-fašistički front žena, 1942–1953). However, besides being constituted of female members, the AFŽ was a political organization of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, and as such cannot be compared to the Mothers. On the topic of AFŽ see Slevicky, Lydia. (2016). Konji, žene, ratovi (Horses, Women, Wars). Edited by Dunja Rihtman Auguštin. Zagreb: Druga. Also, a valuable online archive of the AFŽ is available, http://www.afzarhiv.org/da-zivi-afz, Retrieved June 9, 2022. 9  The SDA was established in March 1990 and modeled in accordance with the Pan-Islamic ideology of the Young Muslims (Mladi muslimani), a group of activists who were first active in the 1930s, then with interruptions in the 1950s and 1960s, and then again after the death of Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito in 1980, who advocated for Islam as the cornerstone of a collective cultural identity. The core of the Young Muslims later formed the SDA and became its founding members. They became famous during the ‘Sarajevo Trial’ in 1983 when Young Muslims faced accusations of conspiracy against the state and were sentenced to jail. Among them was Alija Izetbegović, later to become the first president of the independent Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who was sentenced to 14 years of jailtime, but was amnestied and released in 1988. In their early political program in March 1990, the SDA’s focus was not solely on Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Muslims, but was inclusive of all Yugoslav (i.e., in Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, etc.) Muslims (Veladžić, 2019, 245–275). For more information on the Sarajevo trial see the twopart Aljazeera documentary ‘Sarajevski proces’ (2015) 7

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keep in mind when considering not only the work of the Mothers but also how broadly its members were negatively perceived in a patriarchal society, such as the Bosnian Muslim society, that is socially divided along urban/rural and male (public)/ female (private) dichotomies. A more adequate comparison can be found among other women’s organizations, of which the closest are perhaps the Women in Black in Serbia (Žene u crnom), principally due to their work in the public space (Fridman, 2006), and other mnemonic communities formed in Serbia such as the Humanitarian Law Fund or the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, who are engaged in memory activism related to the wars of the 1990s (Fridman, 2011). The Women in Black in Serbia, who organized their first public vigil dedicated to Srebrenica in the Square of the Republic in Belgrade in 1997 (Fridman, 2006, 298), were inspired by the Israeli Women in Black. The Israeli women’s organization was established in 1988  in resistance to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories (Fridman, 2006, 291). Since the 1990s the Belgrade-based Women in Black have kept reminding the Serbian public of the responsibility for atrocities committed not only by Bosnian Serbs, but also by Serb paramilitaries in Croatia and Kosovo. Their vulnerability to physical abuse and relative marginality reflects the difficulties of engaging with the violent recent past in post-Yugoslav societies. While such a degree of violence was not faced by the Mothers in Bosnian Muslim-­ dominated cities, they did face violent attacks in Srebrenica, particularly during early attempts in 1998 to visit their pre-war homes. During the yearly commemoration of the fall of Srebrenica, attendees of the group funerals organized for the victims who have been exhumed and identified, and returnees alike, often face verbal and physical abuse on their way to the Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Center for the Victims of the 1995 Genocide.10

Social and Gendered Context In her text: Victim or survivor? Choosing identity after wartime sexual violence, Zilka Spahić Šiljak writes that: Women’s bodies were and are still a battlefield and object for many scholars, practitioners and ethnic and religious communities. That body represents primarily the ethnic and national paradigm of purity, chastity and sacredness. (2020, 123)

Spahić Šiljak’s paper focuses on the wartime rape in Bosnia and Herzegovina that victimized women and men on all sides, with indications that Bosnian Muslim women form the largest group of victims. Spahić Šiljak questions the conceptualization of the victim/survivor identity and the reduction of victimhood to passive non-agentive subjects (2020, 126). 10  For more insights into life in post-war Srebrenica, see Lippman, Peter (2019) Surviving the Peace: The Struggle for Post-War Recovery in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. Part III – Return to Srebrenica and the Campaign for Recovery. pp. 115–270.

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Although in this chapter the focus is not on wartime rape, the gendered dimension of the Srebrenica genocide, in which men and boys were systematically killed, cannot be dissociated from the core reason for the establishment of the Mothers. As indicated earlier, in the immediate aftermath of the genocide, the search for missing (predominantly male) relatives was the primary goal of the Mothers. These goals would eventually shift toward investigation and helping prosecutorial research in the ICTY and local law enforcement. Through their work with the Mothers, and often against the odds, as I will show, the members gradually shifted their symbolic status from victims to survivors to proactive agents. This transition was neither simple nor smooth. First, in a patriarchal society the disappearance of the head of a household, often the breadwinner, weakens the social position of the surviving members  – spouse, elders, and children, since they lose the economic protection granted by the pater familias. Second, although Socialist Yugoslavia significantly improved women’s rights and access to reproductive healthcare, abortion, voting rights, education, and the labor market, it remained a socially divided and deeply patriarchal society (Papić, 2012; Zaharijević, 2015, 72–89). As mentioned previously, social divisions in Yugoslavia played predominantly on the urban/rural divide, in which the urban was valorized as progressive, and the rural devalorized as backward. That dichotomy rested on the idea that socialism was a modernist project that would create a more equitable society by gradually shedding the ‘old’ traditions of the former feudal/ capitalist society. Added to the trauma of the fall of Srebrenica and the loss of fathers/husbands/sons/daughters/brothers, the women also lost their homes, experienced displacement, and became refugees in their own country. Reflecting on Spahić Šiljak, it is clear from the example of the Mothers that these women have been proactive in their attempts first to establish the facts surrounding the disappearance of their family members, then to establish the facts and responsibilities for the crime, and finally to help preserve the memory of the genocide. It is also important to note that the symbolic status accorded to motherhood plays a key role in the social power that the Mothers and its members, as a group and as individuals, exert. As the president of the Mothers, Munira Subašić says teasingly: “I call them moms (mame).”11 The personal experience of motherhood and loss became the basis for memory activism in a broader, social context, involving interaction with different stakeholders, such as local political parties and elected officials, diplomatic representatives and foreign organizations. In the following section, I will look at the transition from the

 My emphasis. ‘Mama’ instead of ‘majka’ could be perceived as a less formal term that indicates more proximity and intimacy. The word ‘majka’ (mother) is also sometimes used instead of ‘nana’ (grand-mother) which, it could be argued, increases the blood distance (as a two-grade distance, with a mother in between the child and the grand-mother) but also points toward the symbolic status of the authority and respect of older women. Vera Erlich states that although in a patriarchal regime, especially such as that found in Muslim Bosnia, the status of mothers and mothers-in-law is lower than male members, they nevertheless yield great power over children and daughters-inlaw and make alliances with the children against their husbands (Erlich, 1971, 72–73). 11

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victimhood-motherhood nexus to the memory activism-political activism of the Mothers.

Victimhood-Motherhood and Memory Activism-Political Activism Nexus Yifat Gutman and Jenny Wüstenberg define memory activists as “actors (individual or collective), who engage in the strategic commemoration of the past in order to achieve or prevent change in public memory by working outside state channels” (2021, 2). They further emphasize that “unless this work (memory activism) is turned toward transforming the public narrative about the past, it is not memory activism” (2021, 3). In several aspects, the work of the Mothers fits the profile of non-state actors who engage in memory activism – here with the goal of exposing facts about the genocide and consequently changing the public awareness of the genocide. It must be emphasized that their efforts have been successful, as Srebrenica, as a UN-protected enclave, is the only site on which genocide was committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina that has been recognized by the ICTY (Nuhanović, 2007). This, however, doesn’t mean that the process is finished as such. In the former Yugoslav republics, the memory of the past in general, and of the Srebrenica genocide in particular, is fluid and always in danger of being suppressed.12 In today’s Bosnian political landscape, the past represents a site of struggle for recognition (of victimhood) and (political) legitimation as such. During the interview, Munira Subašić recalled the earliest activities of the members, from improvised visits to the front doors of embassies and public vigils on every 11th day of each month in Tuzla, where a large number of people from Srebrenica found refuge, to blocking roads and traffic. On these occasions, the women would hold pieces of cloth with the names of their disappeared written on them. Another activity was interviews, conducted by their children, of their own mothers and relatives, with the goal of gathering as much information from first-­ hand witnesses as possible and handing it over to prosecutors of the ICTY in The Hague. Another survey conducted by members of the Mothers among survivors was concerned with a potential location of the cemetery to the victims of genocide. The survey results clearly indicated that Potočari was the site where families wanted to bury their relatives. As Munira Subašić explains, these interviews enabled investigators and prosecutors to identify by name individual Serb soldiers who were seen taking away Bosniak men and boys who were never to return alive. The women would act as first-hand witnesses of the disappearance of their relatives.

 The amendment of criminal law that makes genocide denial an offense punishable by up to 5 years of jail, was passed in July 2021 by the Office of High Representative (OHR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 12

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The process of researching missing family members and receiving acknowledgment for the wrong that was done to them was a slow process that required navigating complex procedures and dealings with foreign and local authorities. This process continues still. Talking about the achievements of the Mothers up till now, in the context of its members dying out, Subašić explains: We were witnesses. Allah gave us strength to act. I swear to Allah that in those days we didn’t get help or support. We didn’t want to stay at home, cry and get ill. We didn’t listen to anyone. We fought even with our [Bosnian] police. We used our strength to try to find our children, dead or alive. That was our goal, that the world knew the truth. We succeeded. For the first time, Muslims are buried in one place where the whole world comes to commemorate. (…) We had to prove that we had children, that we were raped, that we were expelled from our homes, that genocide was committed against us. We sued the United Nations; even though they could not legally be responsible, they had to acknowledge their moral responsibility.

When Subašić mentions ‘for the first time’ in the previous quote, she indirectly references not only people killed before July 1995, but also those Bosnian Muslims from Srebrenica and its surroundings who were killed during World War II by Chetniks.13 This is made more relevant by the fact that, unlike in previous wars, the names of the killed as well as those who killed them, are now part of the public record. Regarding the length of time and energy it took to sue the Dutch government and establish the responsibility of the Dutch battalion in the unfolding of the events that would lead to genocide, Kada Hotić explained that it took 20 years to be handed the judgment recognizing the responsibility of the Dutch battalion. Regarding which Subašić added: “Who could have waited so long? Any other person would have given up. Each time we were called to stand as witnesses, we were stronger.” On this point, memory activism in this particular case can be seen as resulting from an overlapping of mnemonic practices with political activism – namely the goal of establishing, and implementing over a longer stretch of time, the recognition of the genocide not only within the Bosnian post-conflict society, but also aiming it at the international community. What started as a search for relatives gradually emerged as memory activism.

 Chetniks were members of Serb paramilitary guerrilla groups during WWII. They were responsible for crimes against civilians, not only against Bosnian Muslims and Croats, but Communist Serbs or suspected Communists as well. The term emerged again in the 1990s to refer to Serb forces in general, with a strongly negative connotation. Although placed in a different geographical and temporal context, Bergholz, Max. (2016) Violence as a Generative Force: Identity, Nationalism, and Memory in a Balkan Community. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, is valuable in the retrospective analysis of the memory of crimes committed by Serb forces in 1941 in Kulen Vakuf, north-western Bosnia. The temporal bridge between the 1990s war and the Second World War is often referenced by memory activists, both Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Muslims. For more information on the topic, see Hoare, Marko Attila. (2006) Genocide and Resistance in Hitler’s Bosnia: The Partisans and the Chetniks, 1941–1943 Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006; and Hoare, Marko Attila. (2013) The Bosnian Muslims in the Second World War. Oxford University Press, New York and C. Hurst and Co., London. 13

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This proactive stance ‘from below’ highlights the transition from victimized widows, refugees, and mothers who had their children taken away, to women who insisted that Bill Clinton, then president of the USA, come to Srebrenica for the opening of the Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial and Cemetery in September 2003. Although today the place that the Mothers holds in the Bosnian public landscape appears perhaps unquestionable, along with the power it exerts on various local and foreign stakeholders, this was not the case in the months following the fall of Srebrenica. And, given the turbulent and complex administrative and political organization of the country, nothing is taken for granted, especially the place the memory of the Srebrenica genocide holds in the Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Muslim collective memories. While the resistance to acknowledge responsibility on the Bosnian Serb, as well as the Serbian side, can be understood in terms of avoidance of historical guilt for genocide on the part of a nation that was herself victim of genocide during World War II, it is a bit more difficult to comprehend the sometimes negative or demeaning reactions on the Bosnian Muslim side. What is particularly striking from the interviews is the disdain and discrimination the women faced from local officials, Muslim clerks, foreign bureaucrats and diplomats, and ordinary people from cities like Sarajevo and Tuzla, as they were often presumed illiterate and, implicitly, backward. These situations were not limited to their public encounters but were part of their daily life as internally displaced persons. As the interviews show, the women – and the work they perform in the association – were and continue to be looked at through the lenses of social stratification. In the days following the fall of Srebrenica and the later displacement of refugees from Tuzla to Sarajevo, the survivors were not necessarily met with understanding or empathy. Even the status of internally displaced persons was not immediately given to refugees from Srebrenica and Žepa but was the result of persistent applications to local authorities. As Kada Hotić reminiscences, when about 11,000 phone landlines were installed for free to returnees in Vogošća (a suburban municipality on the Western side of Sarajevo Canton), none were initially meant for refugees from Srebrenica and Žepa. During one of her first visits to the municipality of Vogošća, Munira Subašić remembers that she was asked by the municipal officer if she knew how to write when handed a form to fill in. In parallel to the hardship of displacement and loss, in the months following the fall of Srebrenica, there were persistent rumors of men being kept prisoner in mines in Serbia. Interestingly, Kada Hotić and Munira Subašić point to Mirhunisa Komarica-Zukić, a Bosnian Muslim official in charge of refugees, who would later become president of the Association of Refugees and Displaced Persons in BiH, her own NGO dedicated to refugees.14  It must be noted that following the end of armed conflict in Bosnia, a large number of NGOs were created. The majority catered to international donors, often with serious allegations of financial mishandling. However, since international attention, and donors, then shifted, first toward the war in Syria and later to that in Ukraine, the funds severely diminished, and few of these organizations have survived up to today. 14

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We were lied to. One of them was Mirhunisa Komarica. She persistently maintained that the men were alive in Serbia. It is easier to believe they are alive. How could you believe they are dead? You hope for the best.

The disdain and subtle mockery the women faced from officials and clerks is indirectly referenced several times through the interviews. This in itself is a paradox. On the one hand, the Mothers are perceived as less sophisticated and less educated, and therefore as weak and easily manipulable. Yet at the same time, due to their loss of male family members, they have been proactive and gradually acquired social power through years of activism. Somehow, in this process, the representation of proactive Bosnian Muslim survivors fighting for justice and truth merged with the image of ‘weak rural’ women. One issue that permeates the legacy of the Bosnian war is the question of hierarchy or competition for the recognition of status of victim. Sarajevo, as the capital city under Bosnian Serb military siege, in which a large number of international journalists were stationed, attracted a lot of media attention. While understandably the experience of Sarajevo’s citizens under daily sniper fire and bombardment was traumatic, the Mothers’ need to emphasize their own experience of the Srebrenica siege and genocide as a difficult one, and consequently justify their activism, might appear disconcerting at first.15 The physical proximity to the enemy, which was a feature of the war in the smaller towns and villages across Bosnia and Herzegovina that suffered the most violent ethnic cleansing, is treated today as the cornerstone of the new post-conflict Bosnian Muslim identity. Yet Subašić’s following explanation seems also to be a way to rationalize the Srebrenica women’s hardships to Sarajevans, as a means to justify the Mothers’ approach: Yes, people were killed in Sarajevo and suffered a lot. And I empathize with them. But women in Sarajevo didn’t have to look at Chetniks directly in the eyes. We all had to. We were waiting to see if they would do something to us. Will he let you go? Will he rape you? That’s the difference. We understand them (people from Sarajevo). But we had to look at them (Chetniks) from up close. That’s why we are as we are.16

The Mothers can be seen as a structure that enables the reconstruction of a community of people who share similar experiences of loss. It also stands for help and support among its members. Moving toward memory activism can be interpreted as a coping mechanism. Reminiscing as a group about their lost family members, the women would share their dreams: We didn’t need psychiatrists. When we would arrive at the office, we would tell each other the dreams of our (missing) children we had had the night before. We have lost a lot of members (in the Association). People are dying out.  Belgian sociologist Jean-Michel Chaumont explored a similar phenomenon – a ‘competition’ among victims (Jews, Communists, Roma, homosexuals, concentration camp survivors, etc.) for recognition of their status  – in Belgium and France after World War II.  See Chaumont, JeanMichel. (2010). La concurrence des victims: Génocide, identité, reconnaissance. Paris: La Découverte. 16  Author’s emphasis. 15

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Despite the loss of their children, several members have grandchildren. Their well-­ being and education, a valuable factor in vertical social mobility among Bosnian Muslims, is seen as an ultimate victory over the murderers: 5500 children have lost one or two parents. We as mothers have raised our children not to seek vengeance. Our children do not hate anyone. Instead, they are doctors, engineers, and successful people. We are proud of our grandchildren. They speak foreign languages. Our grandchildren help us translate. That is our success.

The successes in keeping the memory of the genocide alive in the media, the commitment to memory activism, despite their age, has established the Mothers as a corrective of political morality in the muddy waters of Bosnian daily politics. Since March 2022, the Mothers have publicly condemned the nomination of Nevenka Vrkić-Tromp as honorary citizen of Sarajevo Canton, due to her involvement in the 2002 Report of the NIOD, and the relativization of the Dutch government’s responsibility in the Srebrenica genocide. On April 11, they organized a vigil in the city center of Sarajevo. On May 9, Europe Day and Victory over Fascism Day, they organized a demonstration appealing to Russian mothers to not let their sons die in Ukraine, and in support of the people trapped under the Russian siege of the city of Mariupol. And again, on May 11, they issued a letter of support to Palestinian mothers. As the Report of the Srebrenica-Memorial highlights (Green Hanson, 2020), despite the significant results and efforts of the survivors, and not only of the Mothers, the memory of the Srebrenica genocide is also constantly under attack. In that respect, the institutionalization of the memory of Srebrenica genocide is seen by the Mothers as the most valuable and important aspect of their work. While they are not the only memory activists engaged in this process, their contributions are significant.

 onclusion: Slow Memory – Or the Institutionalization C of the Srebrenica Genocide The issue of political and ethnic representation in present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina should be seen in the light of Socialist Yugoslavia’s issues of political representation. This aspect is especially important in the case of Bosnian Muslims, as they were formally recognized as a nation in Socialist Yugoslavia only in 1971. The issue of groups based on ethnicity was seen as an attribute belonging to capitalist societies that would eventually fade away as a (utopian) class-less Yugoslav nation emerged. Because Socialist Yugoslavia was conceptualized as a multi-ethnic and supra-national state, the state’s governing structure, primarily the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, maintained an ambiguous relation with the question of nations coexisting within its borders. This relatively late recognition of nationhood bestowed by the League of Communists of Yugoslavia upon the Muslim nation was the result of intense debates (in male-centered circles) and lobbying by Bosnian

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Muslim Communists (Pozderac, 1980, 55–60), research contributions by historians such as Mustafa Imamović (1976), Muhamed Hadžijahić (1971) and Enver Redžić (1963) and interestingly, writers like Muhsin Rizvić (1971) and Alija Isaković (1972).17 The issue of Bosnian Muslim political (in)visibility is often seen as a late legacy of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the incorporation of Bosnia and Herzegovina within the Austro-Hungarian Empire as a colony (Donia, 2014, 198). It is in this post-colonial, post-conflict context that the corrective morality and social power exercised by the women who survived genocide in Srebrenica, and who formed a non-governmental organization that has been active since 1996, must be located. In his book Torture, Humiliate, Kill: Inside the Bosnian Serb Camp, Hikmet Karčić, who focuses on the concentration camps that appeared at the beginning of 1992 across Bosnian Serb controlled territories, explains that “the camps were organized in such a way as to permanently inflict severe psychological, transgenerational trauma, thus they were indeed an integral part of the entire cleansing Project” (2022, 197). Despite the central place the Srebrenica genocide holds in the memory of the 1990s war, Karčić writes that: The genocide of Bosniaks did not begin and end with Srebrenica. It was an ongoing program, spread across the whole territory, that ran from 1992 until 1995. Physical elimination, long and incorrectly understood to be the only component of genocide, was not the key aim of the Bosnian Serbs. Rather it was the psychological destruction of the Bosniaks that they sought along with the physical removal, either by deportation or by murder, and the destruction of all signs of Bosniak culture from their new para-state (2022, 191).

Memory structure relies on the violence, physical and psychological, the Mothers experienced from 1992 to 1995, and particularly in July 1995. The Bosnian Serb hegemonic practices of ethnic cleansing that persist in the aftermath of the 1990s war, albeit now through political and social means, are countered in the memory work that the Mothers perform individually and through the association. The slow undertaking of institutionalizing the memory of the genocide by surviving family members is a fluid and difficult process. However, the question of continuity, and slow memory, has appeared due to generational shift. Although this chapter focuses on the Mothers and the social power they have exercised in Bosnia and Herzegovina and abroad, a more detailed study of the Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Center for the Victims of the 1995 Genocide (est. 2000) would be valuable in shedding light on the generational shift among survivors and memory activists. Because of the generational shift, and the transition from victimhood-motherhood nexus to memory activism-political activism, it would be helpful to consider this slow memory motion and institutionalization of  Nenad Veličković provides a valuable analysis of the place of literature in nationalist discourse among Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs. While he principally focuses on the use of literature in the post-1990s war educational system, Veličković emphasizes the overlapping of attempts to give historic legitimacy to nationalist discourse with the goal of raising patriots through literary education (Veličković, 2015, 6–7). 17

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the memory of Srebrenica genocide through a comparison between the Mothers and the Memorial Centre’s work. Since both engage in corrective morality in response to the political climate in Bosnian post-conflict politics, how this shift towards acceptance (or not) of the legacy of the genocide will operate, remains dependent on their current and future work.

References Donia, R.  J. (2014). Bosnia and Herzegovina: The proximate colony in the twilight of empire. Godišnjak/Jahrbuch, 2013(42), 197–202. https://doi.org/10.5644/Godišnjak.CBI. ANUBiH-­40.30 Erlich Stein, V. (1971). Jugoslavenska porodica u transformaciji. Liber. Originally published in English (1966). Family in transition: A study of 300 Yugoslav villages. Princeton University Press. Fridman, O. (2006). Alternative voices in public urban spaces: Serbia’s women in black. Ethnologia Balkanica, 10, 292–303. Fridman, O. (2011). ‘It was like fighting a war with our own people’: Anti-war activism in Serbia during the 1990s. Nationalities Papers, 39(4), 507–522. https://doi.org/10.1080/0090599 2.2011.579953 Gavrankapetanović-Redžić, J. (2018). Post-genocide Bosnian Muslims female identity: Visualizing motherhood, violence and victimhood. Acta Universitatis Carolinae Studia Territorialia., XVIIII(2), 63–88. https://doi.org/10.14712/23363231.2019.12 Green Hanson, M. (2020). Izvještaj o negiranju genocida u Srebrenica 2020 [Report on genocide denial in Srebrenica 2020]. Memorijalni centar Srebrenica-Potočari. Gutman, Y., & Wüstenberg, J. (2021). Challenging the meaning of the past from below: A typology for comparative research on memory activists. Memory Studies, 1–17. https://doi. org/10.1177/17506980211044696 Hadžijahić, M. (1971). Nacionalni odnosi danas  – Prilog sagledavanju nacionalnih odnosa u Bosni i Hercegovini [National relations today – Contribution to the analysis of national relations in Bosnia and Herzegovina]. Zavod za izdavanje udžbenika. Hasanbegović, Z. (2012). Jugoslavenska muslimanska organizacija 1929.  – 1941. (U ratu i revoluciji 1941. – 1945.) [Yugoslav Muslim Organisation 1929–1941. In war and revolution 1941–1945]. Bošnjačka nacionalna zajednica za Grad Zagreb i Zagrebačku županiju-Institut društvenih znanosti Ivo Pilar-Medžlis Islamske zajednice u Zagrebu. Helms, E. (2003). Gendered visions of the Bosnian future: Women’s activism and representation in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina. PhD dissertation, University of Pittsburgh. Imamović, M. (1976). Pravni položaj i unutrašnji politički razvitak Bosne i Hercegovine od 1878. do 1914 [Legal position and the internal political development of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1878 to 1914]. Svjetlost. Isaković, A. (1972). Biserje. Izbor iz muslimanske književnosti [Pearls. Selection of Muslim literature]. Stvarost. Karčić, F. (2008). The reform of Shari’a courts and Islamic law in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1918–1941. In N. Clayer & E. Germain (Eds.), Islam in interwar Europe (pp. 63–79). Columbia University Press\Hurst. Karčić, H. (2022). Torture, humiliate, kill: Inside the Bosnian Serb camp system. University of Michigan Press. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.12079875 Nuhanović, H. (2007). Under the U.N. flag: The international community and the genocide in Srebrenica. DES.

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Women’s Peace Activism and the Construction of Motherhood in North Macedonia Elena Spasovska

Abstract  The reporting of the wars in the former Yugoslavia tends to represent women and mothers predominately as victims of male violence. However, it is well documented in feminist literature that women’s groups across the republics have played a critical role in organising peace protests, building bridges across contested ethnic lines and exercising agency. Even though North Macedonia proclaimed independence without engaging in the Yugoslav wars, it experienced an ethnic conflict in 2001. There is limited knowledge on the impact the conflict had on women and on their contributions to the peace efforts. The aim of this chapter is to explore women’s experiences of peace activism and how it is linked to their constructions of motherhood. The chapter is based on empirical research with 24 leaders from women’s non-governmental organisations located in three ethnically diverse cities in North Macedonia. The research adopted feminist research methodology, and data was collected through semi-structured interviews and focus group meetings. The findings demonstrated that the common experiences of being women faced with similar structural obstacles and being mothers concerned for the safety and future of their children helped the participants in this research overcome vast political differences and collaborate across ethnic lines. Also, some of them strategically drew links between their identity as women and potentially mothers to have their voices heard and gain legitimacy and recognition within broader peacebuilding efforts. Women relied on their experience and constructions of motherhood to protest against violent actors and to demand social change. However, this paper also cautions against the use of gender essentialism which might de-politicise their efforts.

E. Spasovska (*) University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Ü. Arıboğan, H. Khelghat-Doost (eds.), Constructing Motherhood Identity Against Political Violence, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36538-6_10

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Introduction In a society that conceptualises peace and security as ‘men’s business’, women’s efforts to build peace are precious but they often remain ignored, neglected and silenced. The work that women do in helping victims, keeping communities together, or fighting for equality and justice typically occurs within informal spaces (Cockburn, 1998, 2004; Handrahan, 2010; Helms, 2003, 2013; Porter, 2007; Porter & Mundus, 2012), but it cannot be seen as separate from, or inferior to, formal peace and democratic processes. In fact, I maintain that these efforts constitute an inseparable building block in the construction of sustainable and meaningful peace. The wars in the former Yugoslavia provoked considerable interest among feminist researchers, and the work of women’s groups in this region has been acknowledged and documented in domestic and international scholarship (Cockburn, 1998, 2000; Korac, 2003; Mladjenović, 2001; Slapsak, 2001; Žarkov, 2003). Yet, the academic literature on the conflict and post-conflict reconstruction in North Macedonia focuses almost exclusively on the roles of political and military actors in guiding the peace process, and on the impact of the decisions made by these actors (Bellamy, 2002; Gounev, 2003; Lund, 2005; Lyon, 2011; Petroska-Beska & Kening, 2009). Given that women have generally been excluded from the formal peace processes in N. Macedonia, their efforts to maintain peace and rebuild society after the conflict have generally been forgotten and made less visible. This chapter is based on a research project aimed at investigating the activities, ideas, experiences, priorities, challenges, hopes and concerns of women peacebuilders in North Macedonia. The particular focus is on women who have been engaged within the women non-governmental organisations (NGOs). It will be argued that many of the women activists relied on their experience and constructions of motherhood as a strategic tool to achieve some level of agency and recognition within the broader peacebuilding efforts. Furthermore, their common experiences of being women faced with similar structural obstacles and concerned for the safety and the future of their (and all) children helped them overcome vast political differences and collaborate across ethnic lines. However, this research will also highlight the risks of essentialising womanhood and motherhood to gain relevance within the peacebuilding space as this often de-politicises their efforts. The chapter will start with a brief overview of the political context of North Macedonia highlighting the complexities of the country’s transition to democracy and independence following the break-up of Yugoslavia and the ethnic conflict in 2001. Then I will discuss the methodology applied in the research project with peace activists in North Macedonia this chapter is based on. In the following section, I will focus on two significant periods regarding the development and peace activities of women’s organisations in Macedonia: the transition towards democracy and the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s, and the ethnic conflict in 2001 and post-conflict peacebuilding. Finally, the last part of this chapter will critically engage with notions which link womanhood, motherhood and women’s contributions to peace.

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Background The Republic of North Macedonia is located on the Balkan Peninsula, in South-East Europe. Macedonia, along with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Monte Negro, Serbia, and Slovenia, is one of the six countries that formed the former Yugoslavian Federation. In the eyes of the world this region became infamous following the ethnic wars that took place in the countries of the former Yugoslavia at the beginning of the 1990s. Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in 1998, but Serbia and many other countries do not recognise Kosovo as an independent state. In 1991, N. Macedonia proclaimed independence in a peaceful manner and started its long and difficult transition from state socialism to parliamentary democracy and a liberal market economy. While N. Macedonia was not spared from ethnic grievances and nationalism, it was the only former Yugoslav country that did not get involved in this type of destructive and violent politics and it proclaimed independence without bloodshed. Until 2001, N. Macedonia was considered a ‘success story of preventive democracy’ (Ackermann, 2000) and an ‘oasis of peace’ within the tumultuous region of the Western Balkans. Nevertheless, its complex geopolitical position posed ongoing challenges to the state-building process post-independence. Unresolved ethnic grievances, combined with economic insecurity and the negative effects of the war in neighbouring Kosovo (1998–1999), resulted in an escalation of armed violence in 2001. The National Liberation Army (NLA), closely connected with the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) launched a series of attacks demanding higher social and political status and increased autonomy for the ethnic Albanians within N. Macedonia. Stephan Wolff (2006: 68) identifies four underlying causes of conflict, which are necessary but not sufficient conditions: structural, political, economic and social, and cultural and perceptual factors. Most of these factors, on a smaller or larger scale, were prevalent in N. Macedonia. It was a structurally weak state in terms of the relative weakness of its institutions and rule of law, bound by ethnic geography and threatened by secessionist movements in the neighbouring states. Ethnic Albanians suffered disproportionately from rural economic underdevelopment, and in 2001 less than 20 per cent of ethnic Albanians had formal employment (Cordell & Wolf, 2010: 56). Ethnic Albanians were also under-represented in the educational system, and were a lot less likely to enrol in, or to finish, secondary or tertiary education (Cordell & Wolf, 2010: 56). They claimed that the lack of higher education offered in the Albanian language prevented them from obtaining university degrees and marginalised them in the labour market. Complaints of discrimination in every aspect of public life became increasingly vocal and culminated in 2001. Biljana Vanskovska (2007: 20) argues that the political economy of the Macedonian conflict in terms of inefficient, corrupt and unaccountable government and widespread poverty contributes to the violent outcome. Due to pressures stemming from the wider international community, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the United States in particular, the

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ethnic conflict ended within 6 months. Even though it did not escalate into civil war, the conflict in Macedonia was not without civilian casualties and allegations of war crimes. It is estimated that between 200 and 300 people lost their lives, and 180,000 people were displaced as a direct result of the fighting (Ripiloski & Pendaroski, 2013: 139). Peace negotiations concluded with the signing of the Ohrid Framework Agreement (OFA) in August 2001. The peace agreement provided a framework for constitutional, territorial and political organisational changes such as decentralisation of government, introduction of a power-sharing model and double majority principles, equitable representation in public administration, and the use of the languages of minority groups within the education system and public office. Lyon (2011: 28) explains that the reforms were intended to provide local, culturally diverse communities greater control over the management of their own affairs, but the implementation remains slow (Bieber, 2008).

Methodology This chapter is based on a research project that adopted feminist research methodology that embodies women’s authentic voices and perspectives, and acknowledges and values their experiences and practical knowledge (Ackerly & True, 2010; Hesse-Biber, 2012). Such methodological approach opens possibilities to learn from women’s lived experience, gives visibility to voices that have long been silenced or marginalised, denounces systems of oppression and power imbalances, and creates changes in society (Ackerly & True, 2008; Ramazanoglu & Holland, 2009). The participants in this research were 23 leaders and members of women’s organisations in Macedonia. I selected the participants based on their experience and expertise within the women’s NGO sector. During the research process, I was dedicated to facilitating conditions of empowerment and reciprocity. I was very vigilant about and worked towards alleviating as much as possible the issues of unequal power and privilege between myself as the researcher and the participants. Building reciprocal relationships and sharing power are essential elements of conducting participatory and collaborative research. Both represent very challenging aspects of feminist research as human interaction is shaped by complex processes of negotiation between different social locations and ideological and political standings. While conducting the research, I paid particular attention to issues of power (Brydon-Miller et  al., 2004; Lykes & Conquillon, 2007), reflexivity (Day, 2012; Enloe, 2016; Hesse-Biber & Piatelli, 2012), insider/outsider relationships (Bhopal, 2001; Ryan et al., 2011), and intersectionality (Davis, 2008; Sallah, 2014). My experience when conducting this research could be described as a ‘journey home’, in both a geographical and emotional sense. As a Macedonian citizen living in Australia, belonging to the privileged majority ethnic group in N. Macedonia, I was aware of the responsibility to be rigorously self-reflective and politically mindful of the impact my political location could have on the participants and on the

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research process itself. In this particular research context, my ethnic identity is intertwined within the complex web of ethnic relations in Macedonian society. Therefore, I applied reflexivity as a continuing mode of self-analysis and political awareness (Finley, 2002: 532) of how my positionality affected my relationship with the participants and how it influenced the process of generation of knowledge. As an insider/outsider I tried to question my own bias and prejudice constantly, and to remain open to new insights and perspectives. The field research took place in N. Macedonia in the period between March and September 2014. Therefore, the research focused on the role of women’s NGOs in building peace in Macedonia in the period between 1991 and the end of my field research in September 2014. In collecting data, I used a combination of qualitative methods including semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions. This research was conducted with representatives of women’s organisations currently operating in Tetovo, Kumanovo, and the capital of Macedonia, Skopje. I selected these cities because they contain communities with rich ethnic diversity and complex inter-ethnic relations, and they were the most severely affected by the ethnic conflict in 2001. I focused on organisations that are led by women and whose membership mainly consists of women. The research includes women from different ethnicities, age groups, educational levels and political or ideological backgrounds. In fact, fulfilling the aim of this research was intrinsically correlated with gathering information about, negotiating and exploring a diversity of women’s perspectives and epistemological and ontological standpoints. For anonymity and confidentiality, I concealed the real names of the participants by using pseudonyms.

 omen’s Peace Activities in Times of Political Violence W and Uncertainty The wars in Yugoslavia and the proclamation of independence of the respective republics contributed towards limiting the number of women in the parliaments and in official political bodies. In times of declining political power for women, anti-war protests were among the very few venues where women had a voice and could express their opinions about the militarised states they lived in. These types of women’s protests were ‘genuinely autonomous women’s initiatives’ (Korac, 2003: 25) and they were significant because women demonstrated agency in actively opposing the militarisation of their countries. Women were at the helm of most anti-­ war initiatives that emerged during or prior to the wars in the former Yugoslavia. From the beginning of the 1990s, many local and national women’s NGOs emerged in Macedonia. A number of studies recognise women’s NGOs as the most numerous and accomplished civil society organisations in the country (Cekic & Hristova, 2015; Klekovski et  al., 2006). They have also been instrumental in spearheading many peacebuilding initiatives and providing vital humanitarian

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support for refugees and internally displaced person during all conflicts in the region. In this section, the narratives of leaders and members of the women’s NGOs sector in N.  Macedonia will be analysed to understand their goals, motivations, activities, and constructions of identities as women, mothers and peacebuilders. Here I focus on two distinct phases as they are associated with specific historical and political events. The first phase encompasses the period between the proclamation of independence in 1991 and the Kosovo refugee crisis in 1999, and the second phase is marked by the ethnic conflict in N. Macedonia in 2001 and the related post-­ conflict peacebuilding efforts.

The First Phase The wars in Yugoslavia were interrelated, and the Macedonian conflict was located on the continuum of violence in the region. Similarly, people’s struggles for peace are intertwined by relationships of support and solidarity across national borders, and this is particularly the case when it comes to women’s efforts for peace. The literature on women’s peace activities in the former Yugoslavia sporadically mentions the involvement of Macedonian women (Licht & Drakulić, 2002; Slapsak, 2001). Although the information given is scarce, it does indicate that women from Macedonia have been involved with the peace movements and organisations in the region. All participants in this research who were active in the NGO sector in the 1990s were in some way involved in the Yugoslav women’s peace movement. Women’s organisations worked on issues that were relevant to their compatriots, such as withdrawing soldiers from the Yugoslav Army and facilitating the return of Macedonian citizens living in war-affected areas. They also were engaged in a variety of activities in support and solidarity with the people from the regions who were directly affected by the wars, such as signing petitions, participating in local and regional peace protests, and providing help for refugees. We were the first ones that gathered at the City Square in Skopje when the war in Bosnia broke out and we conveyed a message that, although Yugoslavia fell apart, peace must be maintained. We were urging stability ... At the time we didn’t know there would be a conflict in 2001. We organised the first peace movement and many women joined us. That is when we grew in numbers as a women’s organisation the most. (Anica)

Anica was suggesting that women’s organisations in Macedonia organised a peace movement as a form of solidarity with the struggles of their, to use a common feminist term, ‘sisters’ from across Yugoslavia. Even if they felt relatively safe in Macedonia, women chose to invest their time and efforts to oppose the war and to build local and regional capacities to promote peace and tolerance across ethnic lines and political differences. Sonja identified collaboration with other women’s organisations in the region, especially during the wars in the former Yugoslavia, as an integral part of their own growth and journey as a women’s organisation: ‘We

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collaborated with Women in Black, with the Mother’s Movement “Wall of Love” from Zagreb, with other humanitarian organisations in Serbia’ (Sonja). The Mother’s Movement is particularly relevant in terms of the construction of motherhood and anti-war activism. The Mothers Movement was organised by parents, predominantly women, who requested that their sons be withdrawn from the Yugoslav National Army (YNA). This movement was different from many of the other anti-war initiatives because it gathered women from all parts of Yugoslavia and from many different educational, urban/rural and ideological backgrounds. Most of the other peace initiatives were relatively homogenous in terms of being spearheaded by middle-class and urban intellectuals and activists. Therefore, the Mothers Movement was an opportunity to enhance agency towards peace among a great variety of women, and to strengthen the solidarity between them. Military service in Yugoslavia was compulsory for men over the age of 18. They spent 9 months in training and doing service for the Yugoslav Army, usually being based outside of their home country. Hence, when the wars started significant numbers of men serving their military duty were trapped within the Yugoslav Army, and they were forced to engage in military actions. In 1991 the responsibility of the men who served in the Yugoslav Army was to stop moves towards independence by Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia. The Mothers Movement united women from all parts of Yugoslavia in their roles as mothers who ‘joined together to save their sons from going to battle and to being sacrificed in a conflict that, at that time, made no sense to them’ (Nikolić-Ristanović, 1996: 359). The Mothers Movement is described as a spontaneous reaction of mothers who were concerned for the safety and well-being of their sons. Borić maintains that these women ‘were guided by the basic, traditionally reinforced and expected urge to care for others’ (2007: 40). Yet organised in the form of a protest and in an attempt to protect their families, ‘women proved how the personal becomes political’ (Borić, 2007: 40). Their personal concerns about the well-being of their children were channelled into political demands to withdraw soldiers and stop the fighting. In this sense, the Mothers Movement embodied a synergy between patriarchal expectations of mothers, militarism and women’s peace activism. It is not by accident that peace movements’ leaders and main activists are women and that mothers of soldiers joined them without any reservations. Women never had the opportunity to make important political decisions, especially not those that are connected with the use of weapons. But at the same time they were always asked to give birth to sons  – soldiers whom now impassioned oligarchs irreverently sacrifice for their nebulous, meaningless and unrealisable goals (Cetković, 2003: 62, quoted in Milojević, 2013: 139–140). In one of their early statements, the Mothers of the Soldiers of Belgrade, a Serbian branch of the Mothers Movement, made it clear that their sons should not give their lives for the imperialist purposes of a project that was created by politicians, and in wars that had a fratricidal character (Hughes et  al., 1996: 514–515). The Yugoslav Federation was based on the idea of ‘brotherhood and unity’ among different national groups who shared similar cultural traits and a

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common Slavic descent. Therefore, the wars in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina were considered fratricidal wars, or wars against people who share a common origin. The Mothers Movement was one of the first peace protests in the former Yugoslavia, but it lacked a clear strategy and a well-articulated political message. However, the movement was significant on several levels. First, it managed to gather vast numbers of women from diverse regions who took over public spaces and voiced their concerns and demands. This is particularly important in the Yugoslav context, because women’s activism was not common during the socialist period. Second, by protesting in front of masculinised, militarised institutions such as the Yugoslav Army headquarters, women stood in sharp contrast to this militarised space and did not allow themselves to be intimidated by the concentration of male power within this environment. Third, by refusing to ‘sacrifice’ their sons in war, they seemingly rejected the role of ‘patriotic mothers’ that the nationalist project assigned to women. Gradually, however, as the violence escalated and the wars spread across Yugoslavia many women did not remain immune to the nationalism of their own ethnic nations. The protests were manipulated by the political elites and the media, and the role of women was transformed into a stereotype of ‘the mother of the nation, the martyr and the heroine’ (Korac, 2003: 29). Unfortunately, the pervasive nationalist ideology eventually consumed the peace processes and some of the later statements of the mothers ‘implied that their sons should be fighting for their own “blood and soil” if necessary’ (Hughes et  al., 1996: 516). The lack of a strong ideological background and goals that would have strengthened the movement made the movement susceptible to political influences. The respective national governments supported the mothers (Licht & Drakulić, 2002), but the involvement of the national governments contaminated the movement with nationalist ideas that made solidarity almost impossible. In addition, as soon as their sons were withdrawn from the YNA and their primary goal was achieved, many mothers, such as the mothers from Macedonia, lost interest in further expanding the movement. Nevertheless, the participants in this research confirmed that the movement was strongly supported by women in Macedonia. Women from Macedonian, Albanian, Turkish and Roma backgrounds were united in facing a mutual problem concerning the well-being of their children, and a shared hope that they would return home safe. The organisation Majka (Mother) from Kumanovo was formed to support the regional Mother’s Movement. After the Mother’s Movement was disbanded and the goal of returning the soldiers home was accomplished, the organisation Mother from Kumaovo continued to work independently in the area of humanitarian assistance, domestic violence, and gender equality. Their primary scope continues to be humanitarian and the name itself highlights the connection between their activities mostly related to tasks of care and support for others and the construction of motherhood. The 1990s were marked by severe economic, political and security crises, and in 1999 an influx of around 360,000 refugees escaping the war in Kosovo and the NATO bombing of Belgrade found refuge in Macedonia. This further devastated the already fragile Macedonian economy and caused a humanitarian crisis. Women

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responded to the multi-layered crises promptly and decisively, and women’s NGOs were the leading providers of services and humanitarian support. The refugee crisis in Macedonia attracted a significant number of large international agencies who invested resources to help refugees who were settled in Macedonia, and this set the humanitarian agenda for the following years (Cierco, 2013: 205). The social and humanitarian character of women’s NGOs was enhanced because a lot of the humanitarian aid was channelled through them, and women felt compelled to help those in need. ‘The activists from the organisations acted on self-­ initiative to help the refugees’ (Renata). Women’s NGOs were involved with organising charities and humanitarian actions for poverty relief, providing health education and bringing health care to remote areas, offering counselling services for victims of domestic violence, and channelling humanitarian aid to refugees from the war in Kosovo. It is notable that participants from grassroots organisations placed great value on providing practical support to disadvantaged groups of citizens. The participants expressed a desire to help others (Dijana, Nevena, Silvija, Sonja); to make somebody’s life better or to make somebody happy (Anica, Dijana, Nevena); and a commitment to improving the community (Milena) as their motivation. A strong emphasis on ‘apolitical’ activities such as service provision and humanitarian support carries the risk of ‘de-politicising’ the work of women’s NGOs. In other words, the expectation that women’s NGOs have a responsibility to care for those in need can potentially undermine their more political goals of advancing gender equality or including women as equal partners in all matters of peace and security. This was elaborated by one of the participants: a patriarchal matrix according to which women do the work of care. Care for the family, or care within society. So, whenever there is a problem, e.g. displaced persons (mostly women and children) who need help, that matrix is immediately activated and care for others is considered a women’s duty. (Magdalena)

This care is important. However, the expectation that women are more ‘nurturing’ and better at doing ‘care’ based on constructions of motherhood, I maintain, an essentialist assumption that often serves as a rationale for channelling humanitarian aid for refugees and victims of war predominantly through women’s NGOs, and not through other civil society groups (Helms, 2003, 2013). Yet this type of justification threatens to weaken women’s efforts to position themselves as equal political subjects within civil society and within formal politics.

The Second Phase Women’s NGOs in Macedonia were at the helm of many civil society initiatives responding to the immediate and long-term challenges posed by the escalation of ethnic violence in 2001. Providing humanitarian support and service delivery remained one of the primary aspects of their work, and this became even more

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relevant with the emergence of internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the areas that were affected by the fighting. Silvija explains some of her organisation’s activities to help IDPs: We all worked with the people who came down from the war-affected villages. Most of them were women and children. We took turns in the collective accommodation centres, bringing baby food, diapers and clothes, organising psychological counselling and health examinations, and conducting different kinds of workshops. (Silvija)

So, the work of care and support for those in need was again mostly done by women’s NGOs because they saw their role as linked to helping and caring for others: ‘We went on the ground to work directly with victims, and we were on the front line because there were women and children that needed help’ (Dijana). The common experiences of motherhood helped them establish strong relationships and provide help across contested ethnic lines. One of the most devastating consequences of the ethnic violence in 2001 was the deterioration of inter-ethnic relations and the rise of ethnic hatred and intolerance. In the years after the conflict, working on inter-ethnic tolerance and co-existence became one of the main priorities for women’s NGOs. In conflict societies maintaining communication and collaboration across warring ethnic lines can be risky and extremely difficult. Being on different sides of the conflict lines meant having very different views of the causes and the consequences of the conflict. Typically, Macedonian people saw the Albanian fighters as ‘terrorists’ who threatened the well-being and security of the country and its people. By comparison, most of the Albanian population considered the NLA to be ‘human rights fighters’ who were forced to resort to violence in order to fight against the long tradition of discrimination against the Albanian people. This different positioning on the causes of the conflict was expressed by the participants as well: When the conflict erupted, we held an urgent meeting. During the meeting, tensions and intolerance between us developed. We were wondering what was happening; we couldn’t understand what the Albanians in Macedonia wanted. Their response was: ‘We have a national army now that will protect our rights and interests that have been jeopardised in this country’. Members of the other ethnic groups, especially Macedonians, responded that they enjoy all rights. (Mare)

Mare’s statement is just one example of the disagreements that developed within the women’s NGO sector. In fact, the collaboration between Macedonian and Albanian NGOs during the conflict was often fraught with tensions, mutual accusations and conflict, and on a few occasions the collaboration was halted. However, despite difficulties and enormous challenges, the great majority of these inter-ethnic networks and alliances were sustained during the conflict and they were fortified in the post-conflict period by creating a unified front on issues. Some of the participants identified their experiences as mothers and main caregivers and nurturers as a unifying force. I think that women from the affected areas suffered the consequences of the war the most, because during the conflict and afterwards they were affected by great insecurity. They are

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the ones that remain in the home, had to find food for the children, to gather all the pieces together and make it whole again. (Teuta)

Teuta’s statement explains why women engage in peacebuilding at the informal level. They have no choice but ‘to gather all pieces together and make it whole again’, within their family and within their community. Women’s traditional caregiving and nurturing responsibilities make them very vulnerable to the emergence of violence and for the same reasons they have ‘a huge stake in the stability of their communities’ (Hunt & Rosa, 2001: 41). Women are not only caregivers and nurturers; war offends them as citizens too. When armed violence escalates, women from all ethnic backgrounds suffer the consequences of the insecurity, fear and pain that violence brings. The fact that most women are affected and hurt by conflict in similar ways and feel responsible for the well-being often helps bridge vast political distances. It is through dialogue that we acknowledge our difference and move towards shared ideas and narratives of the past, present and future. This was a very tense and painful meeting, with lot of anger and mutual accusations … At the end, we all agreed that if the tensions further escalate and move into our city, our children will be victims, because in conflict everybody gets hurt, it doesn’t matter if you are Macedonian, Albanian, Serbian … From that night we grew closer together and we decided to work together in dealing with the challenges of the situation, helping refugees and working towards peace. (Mare)

The fact that they were equally dedicated in helping and caring for the children of their own people and the ones of the ‘others’ played an enormous role in lifting the veil of suspicion and distrust. It was a humane thing to do, it was driven by our human nature. We didn’t distinguish who they were and where they were coming from. We treated people from all ethnic backgrounds equally. We just focused on offering help and satisfying the needs of those who needed our support and care. (Sonja)

By doing that, they resisted exclusionary nationalist politics and opted to practise inclusion, humanity and care. This position was a starting point to overcoming the ‘harm of polarisation’ (Porter, 2007) based on differing views and perspectives and building a foundation upon which women’s alliances were sustained and strengthened.

Motherhood, Gender Essentialism and Political Participation The women peace activists demonstrated an unwavering conviction that peace and equality are intrinsically interwoven, and that peace can be meaningful and long-­ lasting only when women’s voices and perspectives are included at all decision-­ making levels within political institutions and peace processes. As one illustration of the participants’ position on women and formal decision-making, Anica was clear that, ‘in order to maintain sustainable peace and to create a sustainable and

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stable country, it is crucial that women are included in the decision-making process’. Some participants argued that women are better at making peace to emphasise what they perceived as women’s moral authority in matters of peace and security. In justifying this, they used what I believe are essentialist explanations regarding women’s innate capacities for peace. The essentialist argument prescribes women’s propensity towards peace and men’s inclination for war as given. Gender essentialism is the notion that women and men have different natural and biologically conditioned properties that are inevitable aspects of who they are. Some theorists point to inherent differences between male and female hormonal levels and brain function to defend the thesis that men are more violent, and women are more peaceful (Fukuyama, 1998; Papandreou, 1997). A few of my participants clearly stated that women’s inclination towards peace is rooted in their biology. Vesna believed that ‘a woman, by nature and from birth, carries something peaceful in her. She has a peaceful nature.’ Another participant, Sonja, continuously insisted that women’s biology distinguishes them from men, and makes them better at sustaining and promoting peace: They should only introduce their biology, listen to their own mind and reason, and their feelings. We can’t escape the reality that we are biologically different from men. Women should use their biology in the service of peace and everything will be alright. To not obey directions from any kind. We are talking about the majority; we don’t talk about exceptions among men and among women. There are also men that are sensitive and gentle. Biologically, we have awareness of the ‘other’, a woman wants to understand and listen to the ‘other’, and solve the problem peacefully. This is where she needs to include her brain, reason and biological feelings. (Sonja)

In Sonja’s view, women’s biology is an asset that ought to be used in order to advance peace. Sonja frames women as superior to men in terms of empathy, the ability to resolve and transform conflict, decide on morality and ethics, and possess a sense of justice. She invokes different biological properties to promote women’s inclusion in formal decision-making processes. Although she concedes that when women enter formal politics, they do not always act according to what she perceives as the superior codes ingrained in their biological make-up, she is convinced that this is vital for peace. During our interview, Sonja insisted on using the word ‘biology’. However, I got the impression that she was as aware as I am that many of the female traits that she was referring to are not necessarily biologically determined, but learned through processes of gendered socialisation. Johan Galtung (1996) argues that the ‘equation man: women = war: peace’ is a result of both biology and socialisation. Galtung locates the source of male aggression and violence in their sexuality and different gender socialisation processes. He explains that girls and boys have different hormonal levels and neurological triggers and are socialised differently. According to Galtung, women are more prone to peace, among other reasons, because ‘a girl’s life can be spun around the theme of high empathy, from infanthood to motherhood to grand-motherhood’ (1996: 44). Sara Ruddick (1989) also makes a connection between women’s peacefulness and the experience of motherhood. Ruddick (1989)

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promotes the concept of ‘maternal thinking’ as integral to introducing values and practices that uphold peace. However, Ruddick does not restrict this to biological motherhood, but to the practices of nurturing. Even though some argue that the experience of motherhood and maternal instincts should be attributed to biology, this is not necessarily the case. Many child-rearing practices are learned and the product of gendered roles. The participants in this research who invoked women’s capacity for ‘maternal thinking’ as a tool to promote peace believe that women’s experiences as mothers and principal nurturers within the family make them more apt to find peaceful resolution of conflicts. Nevena’s statement reflects this perspective: Women can contribute towards peace more than men. If women were in power, there would never have been a war. Because a woman, she starts from herself because she is a woman, a mother. You would never send your child to go and die in war. That’s the same for every mother. Men are different. They are more ‘hot heads’. Women will contribute more towards peace, communication and everything. Women communicate more than men. Women always have the tendency to avoid and stop conflicts. Always have been, always will. We have the capacity to collaborate and to talk things through. (Nevena)

Nevena argued that women are better at making peace because of, as Erik Melander explains, ‘the unique female ability to give birth and the skills of mothering transmitted from experienced mothers to girls and young women’ (2005: 697). Nevena, and five other participants who share this view maintained that the child-­ rearing experience motivates women to uphold peace, gives them unique communication and conflict resolution skills, and makes them wary of conflicts and militarisation. Nevena’s discourse is based on the premise that women’s tendency to prevent or solve conflict is universal and timeless because she sees women’s connection with motherhood as universal and timeless. Nevena, Sonja and Vesna defend what is, in my view, an oversimplified but decisively positive characterisation of women. They promote this perspective to emphasise women’s legitimacy and suitability to become involved in peacebuilding efforts. Many of the female characteristics that the participants were referring to are learned behaviour and are not universal or timeless. I contend that some of the participants in this research insisted on framing women as inherently more peaceful than men as a ‘strategic choice’ to strengthen women’s influence within post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding efforts. Elissa Helms (2003, 2013) borrows Richard Fox’s (1997) term ‘affirmative essentialism’ to explain similar strategies used by women’s NGOs in post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina. In Macedonia, the tendency to portray women as more empathetic and caring, less prone to ethnic nationalism and more committed to peace was effective in attracting support from foreign donors for women’s NGOs’ work on inter-ethnic tolerance and co-existence, humanitarian aid and other peace-­ related issues. Yet little has been achieved in transforming the patriarchal structures that deny women substantive and equal power within formal political spaces. The criticisms of the use of essentialism are substantial. First, although women undertake substantial peace initiatives across the globe, ‘these are often based on a pragmatic response to desperate situations rather than on an inherently pacifist

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orientation’ (El-Bushra, 2007: 135). This means that women are not essentially peaceful, but that their gendered socialisation into nurturing and caring roles, and the risk of becoming victims of violence, drive them to take action in response to the realities of war. Second, essentialism is problematic because it reduces women, who are diverse and varied, to one unified, homogenous and unchangeable category. This essentialism also ignores the fact that not all women are mothers or play ‘mothering’ roles, or the fact that women who are mothers can incite violence and commit atrocities. Furthermore, ‘women’s mothering and nurturing roles are also far from “natural” and are socially constructed within patriarchy, even when women themselves collide with this construction’ (Lentin, 1997: 67). Third, the participants’ use of essentialism simultaneously perpetuates gender biases that are the core of gender inequality as they try to promote equal participation. Ann Tickner (2002: 338) explains that the association of men with the realities of ‘war’ and women with an ‘idealistic’ notion of peace reinforces gender hierarchies. This gender hierarchy strengthens men’s legitimacy and dominance within the world of politics, and it perpetuates barriers that women face in gaining legitimacy in military and foreign policy-making (Tickner, 2002: 338). At the same time as these arguments are used to promote women’s role within the peace and security agenda, they perpetuate patriarchal assumptions that ‘men are protectors and women are protected’ (Kaufman & William, 2013: 6). They de-politicise women’s approach to war and peace, and they deprive women of the substantive political agency that is necessary to gain legitimacy or to be taken seriously within formal peace processes. The association of women with peace can play into unfortunate gender stereotypes that characterize men as active, women as passive; men as agents, women as victims; men as rational, women as emotional. Not only are these stereotypes damaging to women, particularly to their credibility as actors in matters of international politics and national security, but they are also damaging to peace. (Tickner, 1999: 4)

Fourth, a blanket notion of women’s utility for peace ignores the fact that some women support war and violence. A few of my participants drew attention to this. For instance, Arbena argued against the notion that all women are better prepared to show empathy and care, maintaining that ‘Women can do atrocities and be equally as belligerent as men. We know of many examples like that’ (Arbena). The literature provides evidence to support the claim that some women also support and encourage violence, take part in guerrilla groups, and commit atrocities and war crimes (Alison, 2009; Ibañez, 2001; Sjoberg & Gentry, 2007). Another participant rejected the idea of substantial biological differences between men and women, and she maintained that the reason why women are believed to be more peaceful is because women’s voices are less often heard in matters of peace and security: I do think women can be very radical too and I think that biologically we are the same as men. Our brain is the same. Those arguments about motherhood, that there is a possibility that women are better at peacemaking … maybe, but not really. Women can be just as bloodthirsty … Generally, I think that there are no big differences in the way women’s organisations, and women in general, think and in the ways men think. The issue is whose voice is being heard more, and of course male voices are being heard more. (Edona)

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What Edona was saying is that women’s exclusion from formal decision-making power feeds into existing assumptions that women are more peaceful than men. This is one aspect that needs to be taken into consideration when discussing women’s involvement in both war and peace. Reinforcing stereotypes by insisting that women are more inclined towards peace is damaging to leadership in peace because it undermines gender equality. However, women sometimes appropriate ideas that are ingrained in patriarchal culture in order to make space for themselves within areas they have been excluded from. ‘With higher inclusion of women within the formal arena, women will be able to transmit their potential for conflict resolution’ (Dijana). The use of gender essentialism in order to gain legitimacy and recognition as partners in peace is one example of this. Although I conclude that this strategy will not result in substantial transformation in the division of power within the formal political domain, I accept that women are often compelled to adopt such strategies in order to gain some level of power and agency within public life.

Conclusion Women who work within the informal sector usually work closely with their respective communities and have access to the concerns, problems and dilemmas of local women and men. Their knowledge and experiences are vital to creating more inclusive and effective strategies to build peace that is meaningful to all citizens in N. Macedonia. The women’s organisations have been instrumental in spearheading peace initiatives and responding to the immediate and long-term needs brought by escalating ethnic violence within the region, and in N.  Macedonia. The Mothers Movement was one of the most prominent early peace movements which mobilised at the onset of the war of Yugoslavia. The Mother’s Movement had the goal of withdrawing soldiers from the Yugoslav Army, but the mother’s voice was also used as a rationale for opposing wars. Women from N. Macedonia actively participated in the Mother’s Movement. Many joined the movements because they had direct stakes in withdrawing their sons from the army and preventing them from potentially dying in a ‘war that wasn’t theirs’, or because they saw this as an opportunity to raise their voice against the war. Some organisations, such as ‘Mother’ from Kumanovo, were established in the aftermath of this movement. Women’s organisation were primarily responsible for the provision of humanitarian support for the refugees during the wars in former Yugoslavia and internally displaced persons from the conflict in N. Macedonia. While this was not necessarily linked to motherhood per se, it did rely on ideas that women are more nurturing and caring and they are best suited to help those in need. Furthermore, their experiences with women and mothers allowed activities to unite along common fears and concerns over the well-being of their children and communities, while also respecting vast political differences regarding. Even though there was no explicitly maternalistic peace group during the conflict in 2001, women activist did sometimes leveraged position of a grieving or potentially grieving mother to gain legitimacy and voice in

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formal peace effort. However, the problem with relying on ideas that women are more caring, nurturing and peace-loving because their socially constructed roles as mothers can also de-politicise their peace efforts.

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The Psychopolitics of Motherhood and Political Violence: The Case of the Waiting Mothers in Turkey Hamoon Khelghat-Doost and Deniz Ülke Arıboğan

Abstract  The destructive force of war is tremendous, and the post-conflict public policy challenge is always immense. In cases of conflicts in the greater Middle East, where violence seems woven into the very social fabric, repair is hardly the goal; rather what is needed is an even more challenging fundamental reconfiguration. This chapter therefore argues that the political psychology approach is missing from the post-conflict negotiations and reconfiguration table is. Political psychology entails the analysis of psychological, socio-psychological, and cultural variables as they affect public and political attitudes and behaviors. Despite their active role in promoting peace, women and specifically mothers tend to fade into the background when official peace negotiations begin and the consolidation of peace and restoring public services becomes a formal exercise. Mothers can effectively facilitate a long-­ term process of social integration of demobilized combatants, their families, and repatriated refugees, who constitute the most stigmatized social categories in need of assistance in post-conflict public policies. Within the conceptual framework of political psychology and by highlighting the reconstruction of motherhood identity among waiting mothers of the PKK fighters in Turkey as a way forward to successful integration of stigmatized social categories, this chapter argues that a similar mechanism can be utilized for other cases in MENA as well.

This chapter is modified from a previous version published as “Psychopolitics of Motherhood in Post-conflict Public Policies: The Cases of the PKK and ISIS.” In Conflict and Post-Conflict Governance in the Middle East and Africa, pp. 163–188. Palgrave, 2023. H. Khelghat-Doost (*) School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lincoln, Lincoln, United Kingdom e-mail: [email protected] D. Ü. Arıboğan Üsküdar University, Istanbul, Turkey e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Ü. Arıboğan, H. Khelghat-Doost (eds.), Constructing Motherhood Identity Against Political Violence, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36538-6_11

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Introduction The current research on conflict and its psychopolitical impacts is mostly centered around individuals; either the victims or the perpetrators (Jensen et al., 2020). What is also mostly ignored in the formulation of current conflict and post-conflict policies is the impact of those individuals and their actions on their families and also the societal challenges these families experience when a family member is convicted of act of terror. At the same time, what is also sidelined in conducting such public policies is the psychopolitical impacts of conflict on the families’ internal structure (the relationship among the family members) and external interaction, and the way these families are treated and framed by the society, their communities, their relatives and also major political parties (Comer et al., 2019). Among the family members, even less attention has been paid to the more vulnerable female members: mothers. The public policy works on mothers of perpetrators are also mainly focused on finding familial reasons for members to join terrorist organizations (Sikkens et al., 2017). A large section of current policies emphasizes on the role of mothers in radicalization of their own family members (Zuhdi & Syauqillah, 2020). The roots of such approach in policies can be found in the way of thinking which has been entrenched in the public mind as a result of dramatic media reporting or pre-existing, negative, stereotypes we hold about the perpetrators of political violence. The main reason to fail noticing the mothers is that the current public policies are mainly focused on the individuals. Therefore, exploring the causing factors of the individual to participate in acts of political violence has gained more attention than personal relationships and family dynamics. From the limited public policy researches that have been conducted, the findings are positively ambivalent. Some mothers were cited to have supported the cause of their children, some spoke out against it and others were simply unaware of their child’s susceptibility (Sikkens et al., 2017). Mothers of the members of terrorist organizations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and their potentials for restoring peace and stability have received the least amount of policy and programmatic attention (Schmidt, 2020). The lack of in-depth qualitative data and inconsistent findings are arguably a clear indication that it is not possible to make sweeping generalizations and form judgments in the way it was mostly happening. Instead, in-depth public policy research can provide both academicians and policymakers with a richer insight into the details of these mothers’ experiences. Understanding radicalization through political psychology can greatly help policymakers to design effective, innovative, and implementable mechanisms for postconflict counter extremism. Political psychology can be broadly defined as exploring the psychological origins of political behaviors (Cottam et al., 2015). This approach provides a more in-depth understanding of different political acts and behaviors. Understanding the root causes of certain political behaviors certainly paves the way for policymakers to adopt relevant strategies.

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By showcasing the waiting mothers of Diyarbakir in Turkey, this paper argues that the psychopolitical understanding of motherhood can effectively assist policymakers to combat extremism in the greater Middle East. Psychology is one of the main contributors to the construction of motherhood in both social and political forms. Closely affiliated with the political psychology of motherhood, identity construction of motherhood plays a vital role in positioning mothers within sociopolitical structure of every society. Motherhood should be also understood as a collective political identity with its own collective values and ideals (Brewer, 2001). Within this political construction of motherhood identity, psychology plays an important role in defining what is socially considered as “good mothering” in different societies. At the heart of each family, mothers are usually the first family members to realize the early cautioning signs of radicalization in their children. While the observation of changing or changed behavior of their children may be intuitive for many, the awareness and understanding of the process of radicalization is not. Even if mothers recognize extremists in their children they often lack the skills needed to intervene. Mothers need to be equipped and supported in their efforts to prevent their children from joining extremist groups, and also to build their own capacity to reject the influence of extremism and violence (Roble, 2019). The psychopolitics of motherhood could be therefore instrumented effectively by the policymakers to restore sustainable peace and to end political violence especially in MENA. Following the above argument, the case of the waiting mothers of Diyarbakir in Turkey can be used as a model of grassroots effort to end terrorism and radicalization. As an indigenous movement, the model can be modified and utilized in different war-torn societies in MENA including Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, and Palestine. In August 2019, a mother started a sit-in protest in front of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) office in the city of Diyarbakir in southern Turkey to demand for the return of his son who has been abducted by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Soon, hundreds of other mothers and families joined her to demand the return of their children. As a result of the protest, 38f of the abducted children have returned to their families and the PKK’s recruitment pace has dropped from 5600 in 2014 to only 59 in 2020 (Algan, 2021). The waiting mothers’ movement signals a reconstruction of psychopolitical identity among these mothers which can be modified and instrumented as a practical approach in countering extremism in other parts of the Middle East as well. For the purpose of this paper, an in-depth literature review of the areas of interest was conducted examining the previous and current work of experts in the field of political psychology and its connection to motherhood. A wide range of qualitative secondary data was reviewed and analyzed for writing this paper. These included news articles and other news media, transcript of speeches or radio or television broadcasts, official reports, legislation and other enactments, notes, academic journals, communiques, photographs, previously published research, documentaries, biographies, and memoirs. As the waiting mothers have an active presence in the cyberspace, social media and networks were also employed to approach the objectives of this research.

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Waiting mothers effectively use social networks such as Facebook, Telegram, Twitter, Instagram, and other platforms to spread their message. Thus, investigating and following these mothers and their related events on social media provided insights into the behavioral patterns of them. The secondary sources were reviewed to create an in-depth analysis of the historical background of this grassroots movement within the context of political psychology.

Women, Motherhood, and Non-State Violent Actors The relationship between women and non-state violent actors such as terrorist organizations is viewed by many policymakers as an exploitative relationship in favor of the masculine structure of these groups. Several researchers including Peterson (1992), Kaufman-Osborn (2005), and Eisenstein (2004) argue that women are traditionally assumed to be “pure, maternal, emotional, innocent and peace-­loving” (Gentry & Sjoberg, 2015). Such assumption makes women fall victim to institutions with violent modus operandi. As war and violence are considered masculine phenomena, women are assumed to be cowed into victimization. This approach is in line with a dominant body of literature in international relations and public policy which views women as more peace-oriented than men (Jaggar, 1991; Conover & Sapiro, 1993). Contrary to men who are described as rushing to commit violence in wars, Elshtain depicts women as beautiful souls searching for peace (Elshtain, 1987). Likewise, Shapiro and Mahajan conclude that the vast disapproval of the United States’ interventions in the World War II, Korea and Vietnam by women proves their peace-seeking nature in comparison to men (Shapiro & Mahajan, 1986). A group of other researchers such as Miller is of the opinion that a combination of different socio-economic experiences makes more women pacifists than men (Miller, 2012). This approach to studying women is well depicted in Sara Ruddick’s work (1998). She counts three characteristics for women in confronting violence namely, mater dolorosa (The mother of Christ (Virgin Mary) sorrowing for her son), outsider, and peacemaker. The first characteristic emphasizes motherhood through which women grieve for the devastating consequences of violence and conflict. The images of grieving mothers sobbing over their dead sons have become the symbol of war’s atrocity and these mothers are elevated to symbolize the suffering of the entire nation (Healy, 2006). At the end of violence, the women’s grieving character reproduces itself in the public sphere in the form of protesting the aggressor and asking for justice. This is evident in the case of Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo (The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo) in Argentina. Mothers of more than 15,000 people who disappeared during Argentina’s military rule since 1977 started to get together in Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires to ask for information about their missing children. As several researchers (including Bertha von Suttner, Rosa Luxemburg, and Emma Goldman) view conflict as a masculine affair, the second characteristic

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describes women as outsiders who are strangers to men’s war (Chatterjee, 2016). The masculinity of war, therefore distances women from an effective involvement in acts of violence. Such distance matched with the assumption of women’s non-­ violent nature makes them to be easy targets for men’s violence in wars in several ways. Being systematically sexually victimized (through rape) is one of them (Turshen, 2001). The third characteristic, women as peacemakers, is also rooted in their assumed nonviolent nature. When confronting violence, it is argued women react through non-violent means, including peaceful demonstrations or hunger strikes. By the end of the twentieth century and with the rapid expansion of globalization and worldwide movements toward democracy, women’s efforts for more vigorous participation in political activism in different levels increased accordingly. Although as a global trend, women’s participation in political activism is increasing; however, the quality and quantity of such increasing trend vary in different societies. One of the main barriers blocking the progressive participation of women in political activities especially in MENA is the patriarchal structure of the societies in this part of the world. Patriarchy and its definition have been one of the most debated topics in studying gender relations in different disciplines. The existence of various definitions for patriarchy has been also one of the sources for such debates. The word patriarchy is originated from the Greek word patriarkhēs which can be literally translated as “the rule of the father” (Green, 2018). Originally, the concept of patriarchy was referring to the rule of any elder male over other younger members of the family regardless of their gender. This has been the basis for Weber’s approach toward patriarchy as a special form of household in which “the father dominated other members of an extended kinship network and controlled the economic production of the household” (Barrett, 2014). However, in recent time, the definition of patriarchy in the context of gender relations is mostly narrowed down by feminist scholars to the dominating role of men in subordinating women. Referring to Walby’s well-known argument of private and public patriarchy, politics is considered a public sphere which traditionally is not a place for women who are expected to be a part of the private sphere namely household and family (Walby, 1989). This approach has been well materialized in the Nazi’s view of women with the infamous slogan of ‘Kinder, Kirche, Küche’ (children, church, kitchen) (Papen, 1997). Furthermore, and related to the peace politics, maternal practice and motherhood reject militarism and design a model of nonviolent action in which the safety and well-being of children are of outmost importance (Lakezi & Curzel, 2016). In realpolitik, women (especially mothers) have been advocates of nonviolent activism in different parts of the world including the Middle East. However, much of public policies on connection between motherhood identity and radicalization are focused on the process of motherhood identity radicalization. The number of researches on the reverse mechanism is still limited. Investigating the process of motherhood identity deradicalization from the political psychology point of view can open a new horizon before policymakers to utilize motherhood as an effective tool to combat terrorism and to restore sustainable peace.

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Studies clearly indicate that women are more in favor of preventing and stopping violence connected to political and religious extremism (Nwangwu & Ezeibe, 2019). Women’s approach toward preventing extremism is mainly identified through their roles within the institution of family as mothers (Idris, 2019). One of the main mechanisms used by mothers to challenge extremism is to offer a counter-narrative of violent extremism by using their motherhood identity. Directly relevant to policymakers in MENA; “tapping into mothers’ preventative potential, establishing capacity-building mechanisms for mothers, as key security allies, is an essential part of effective and cost-efficient security architecture” (Schlaffer & Kropiunigg, 2016). What makes the case of the waiting mothers in Turkey significant and exemplary is that these mothers have taken motherhood out of the conventional private sphere of household and combined it with political activism. Bridging the gap between private and public motherhood in practice is not common in conservative societies such as those in MENA. Bridging this gap could not be materialized in the absence of social identity transformation of motherhood. Social identity provides a critical link between the psychology of the individual and the structure and function of sociopolitical groups they belong to (Brewer, 2001). The following sections of the paper will demonstrate the process of the motherhood identity transformation among the waiting mothers and how the construction of the new identity can be helpful in designing post-conflict public policies.

The Waiting Mothers of Diyarbakir Protests organized by mothers of victims have long been a part of the political scene in different countries around the world including the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina (Adair, 2019) and the Mothers of the Palestinian detainees in Israel (Diab et  al., 2018). However, currently, Turkey is facing a relatively unique experience with regard to the protests by mothers. Unlike other protests by the mothers of victims, a group of perpetrators’ mothers are protesting for peace. In a rare event, since September 3, 2019, dozens of mothers (referred to here as the waiting mothers) began protesting outside the offices of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in the southern Turkish city of Diyarbakir, demanding the return of their children who are members of the militia organizations of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the People’s Protection Units (YPG). PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, and the European Union and has been responsible for the deaths of 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants. The YPG is believed to be the PKK’s Syrian offshoot (Caymaz, 2021). PKK is the second deadliest group in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries with the average age of recruitment ranging from 20 to 22. Fifty-eight percent of the recruits for which data are available come from low socio-economic backgrounds (OECD, 2016). On September 3, 2019, while holding the pictures of their children, a group of mothers started a protest in front of the Diyarbakir Provincial Directorate building

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of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) at the heartland of Turkey’s Kurdish population. HDP is perceived by many including the Turkish government as having ties with the PKK. The protest initiated spontaneously where mother Hacire Akar started a sit-in, claiming that HDP members kidnapped her son and moved him into the mountains of northern Iraq where PKK military bases are located (Aydın, 2019). Akar’s son Mehmet returned home on August 24, 2019, giving hope to the other mothers. Hacire Akar’s fight to return her son soon became an example for other Kurdish mothers and families with the same dilemma in southern Turkey. Inspired by the mother Akar, hundreds of mothers and family members joined the sit-in protest, denouncing the violence by the Kurdish militias and demanding their children to return home (Karadag & İsmail, 2020). The protests continued even during the outbreak of the coronavirus. While the elderly and chronically ill mothers and fathers were advised to stay home and not to directly participate in the sit-in protest, the rest of mothers continued the struggle while wearing masks and observing social distancing at the protest site. As the peaceful sit-in protest by the waiting mothers of Diyarbakir reaches its 600th day, the impact of the protest on local, regional, and international public policies is becoming clearer. A spontaneous movement initiated by a mother is now grown up into a national-wide demand for change. The waiting mothers have challenged some of the fundamental components of the Kurdish society in Turkey and have impacted state’s post-conflict public policies toward more inclusive grassroots-based political settlement initiatives. The success story of the waiting mothers protest can be expanded beyond the borders of Turkey to neighboring countries including Iraq and Syria which are heavily impacted by terrorist organizations including the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Some of the significant impacts of this campaign include:

Creating a New Motherhood Identity The political identity of Kurdish mothers whose children have joined groups such as PKK or YPG is relatively constructed around the Kurdish ethno-nationalism led by YPG/PKK and HDP.  This constructed identity frames Kurdish mothers as procreators of a revolution-to-be; as matriarchs of the family; and as the most visible face of the suffering of Kurdish women (Göksel, 2018). A part of the literature on motherhood in Kurdish-populated regions of Turkey argues that Turkish modernization following the foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 has ended up in marginalizing Kurdish women by dismantling of their Kurdish ethnic identity and putting them in a more underprivileged position compared to their Turkish counterparts who were greatly benefited from the country’s rapid modernization and secularization (Yüksel, 2006). In practice, the same argument was instrumented by Kurdish militant organizations such as PKK to frame motherhood as a symbol of resistance against what they claim as the Turkish state’s cultural, political, and military invasion and hegemony.

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This in turn transformed Kurdish motherhood into a political identity and subsequently reframed Kurdishness as a politically loaded collective identity with mothers as its protectors (Çağlayan, 2019). As the birth givers to the new generations of Kurds, mothers play a key political and ideological role in the narrative of Kurdishness among militant organizations such as the PKK. Therefore, the waiting mothers’ attempt to oppose this identity by demanding the return of their children is assumed to deconstruct their existing congruent identity and reconstruct it in a transformative version (Snow & McAdam, 2000) which is closer to the state narrative of identity. Traditionally, the current ruling party in Turkey, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been framing motherhood identity as an important element of its plan in catering a moral political system (Aysan, 2018). Within the same discourse, being a mother and therefore capable of reproduction was playing a central role. The newly constructed transformative identity of these mothers in favor of peace and reconciliation can ultimately encounter the violent collective Kurdish congruent identity constructed and heavily promoted by the Kurdish terrorist organizations in southern Turkey. The waiting mothers of Diyarbakir have practically deconstructed their ideological übermensch identity as the custodians of Kurdishness as defined by militant Kurdish organizations. In this transformation, they have started to redefine their motherhood identities as real mothers dealing with the real pain of losing their beloved children to terrorist organizations. Stepping down to reality has enabled the waiting mothers to reconstruct their new political identity of motherhood toward social activism in favor of peace and political settlement. As motherhood is traditionally affiliated with peace, the shift of motherhood identity among the waiting mothers created a high degree of support from the Turkish public and the international community. The waiting mothers have also helped to recover the Turkish public suspicion around the families of PKK fighters. Traditionally, the public was viewing the mothers of Kurdish guerrillas as supporters of terrorism and therefore “pseudo” mothers while praising the motherhood of soldiers’ mothers (Aslan, 2008). For the first time, the newly transformed identity of the waiting mothers together with their demand for bringing back their children from PKK camps have put these mothers at the same side with the soldiers’ mothers – who are highly respected by the Turkish public. The waiting mothers have paved the path for different sectors of Turkish society to better understand each other and to overcome some social stereotypes.

Challenging Social Hierarchies Waiting mothers of Diyarbakir have made significant impacts on the socio-cultural dimensions of the Kurdish society in Turkey as well. Conventionally, mothers involved in social activism are known as catalysts for change (Collins, 2002). In case of the waiting mothers, they have reconstructed the dynamics of the private sphere through their public performance of gender (Taylor, 2001). As a patriarchal

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community, the Kurdish society in Turkey often follows an authoritarian family setting in which male family members are distant and dominant while female members (including mothers and daughters) are subservient (Lichter, 1979). Traditionally, politics and social activism are regarded as existing within the public sphere, which is considered by the male hegemony as unsuitable for women who are expected to remain in the private spheres of household and family (Walby, 2005). The dichotomy of public/male and private/female is the foundation stone of designing the current structure of patriarchal politics and social activism in many parts of the world including the Kurdish community in Turkey. Within this structure, women’s agency in political and social activism is sidelined and instead, women are encouraged to remain within the private sphere of the household. The waiting mothers’ protest however challenged these social hierarchies in favor of a more collaborative and equal structure of political and social activism. The sit-in protests constructed a new dynamic of inter/intra solidarity among these Kurdish families against the political violence imposed on the society by the terrorist organizations. Soon after the start of the struggle, fathers joined the protest to sit in turns with their wives (the waiting mothers) from time to time. While the waiting mothers were protesting, their husbands took the responsibility for parenting the children at home. Active participation of the male family members in the protests signals a gradual shift in the patriarchal gender structure and stereotypes of the Kurdish society in Turkey where the traditional lines between the public and private spheres for women are fading. It is also important to realize that 58% of the PKK recruits come from low socio-economic backgrounds with more conservative patriarchal social practices (OECD, 2016). This makes the impact of the waiting mothers’ movement on challenging the social hierarchies even more significant. As the protest continues, more male family members start to join the waiting mothers demanding the return of their beloved children. The growth signals a shift in the gender hierarchy of the Kurdish society as well in which in a rare event, a peaceful socio-political movement is led by women. In another progressive-related event, Şevket Altıntaş, one of the fathers participating in the sit-in protest wrote a book titled From Diyarbakır Mothers to the World explaining the stories and experiences of mothers and families who have been protesting since 2019. The spontaneous sit-in protest by the waiting mothers soon created a new system of support among the families. While at the initial stages of the campaign some of the waiting mothers were protesting with their young children and infants under harsh climate conditions and even sometimes sleeping on the sidewalk, an informal grassroots support system gradually shaped to help the mothers. Within this informal support system, some of the community members (both men and women) volunteered themselves take care of the waiting mothers’ children while on protest. This informal volunteer-based system provides food and shelter for the children and takes care of their education and well-being. Some community members also provide financial support for those waiting mothers in need. This grassroots volunteer-based support system is ultimately aims on supporting the waiting mothers throughout their struggle to bring back their children from the terrorist camps.

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Unifying the Public for Peace The waiting mothers’ movement has also made a significant impact on unifying the Turkish public against political violence and terrorism. The movement has narrowed the societal gap between the Turkish and Kurdish communities in Turkey. It is argued that the as a result of the terrorist operations by organizations such as PKK, a dichotomy between “proper” motherhood of soldiers’ mothers and “pseudo” motherhood of terrorists’ mothers has been developed throughout Turkish society (Çağlayan, 2008). However, the surprising amount of support for the waiting mothers from thousands of people from all walks of life indicates the success of this movement in narrowing the motherhood dichotomy in Turkey. The sit-in protest by the waiting mothers has successfully created a massive wave of support among different sectors of the Turkish society and has opened a new window before the eyes of the nation with regard to the child recruitment practices of the PKK  – an act of war crime according to the international law. Thousands of Turkish citizens from different parts of the country have expressed their support of these mothers in different ways including through social media. Many artists, journalists, writers, and television hosts have also met with families, listened to their experiences, and conveyed their support. In a recent act of support, a group of 2000 people from the city of Ağrı in eastern Turkey made a mass rally to Diyarbakir in Spring 2021 to visit the waiting mothers. The 450-km walk took almost a week to complete. People from different cities and towns along the way joined the rally as well. The waiting mothers’ campaign received positive feedbacks from media as well. Both national and international media have reported extensively on the events related to these mothers. It is usually argued that media can play a destructive role for the family of the extremists. These families are constantly under pressure by the press and are often demonized by them. This eventually acts as an additional enforcement of the trauma and prevents any healing or closure (Koehler & Ehrt, 2018). Nevertheless, in the case of the waiting mothers, the press played an important role to unite the public against political violence of the PKK and to pressure the organization and its political affiliates to respond to the waiting mothers’ demands. Following the public support for the waiting mother’s movement, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and other high-ranked Turkish politicians also expressed their support of the movement. The sit-in protest was also well received by the international community as well. European Parliament member Tomas Zdechovsky, and several foreign ambassadors to Turkey also expressed their support for the waiting mothers and demanded PKK to end child recruitment. In an act of solidarity, several Kurdish mothers in Germany also joined the movement by starting a sit-in protest in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. The action was covered widely by the German media and made the waiting mothers a topic of political debates in Germany as well. Up to this moment, 23 families have been reunited with their children thanks to the waiting mothers’ protest’s success. As time passes by, the participating parents

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are being more determined to continue protesting until their beloved children are home safe again. The example of the waiting mothers of Diyarbakir clearly demonstrate the importance of considering motherhood in developing public policies after and during conflicts with a special focus on disengagement and deradicalization practices. The case of the waiting mothers could be also practiced as an implementable grassroots initiative in other war-torn societies in the Middle East including Syria and Iraq.

The Psychopolitics of Motherhood and Political Violence Motherhood has not only been traditionally defined as a private affair and within the borders of a household, but as in conflict with political participation all together. Important questions to be asked are however: are discourses of motherhood necessarily conflicting with those of politics? Can motherhood effectively help post-conflict public policies with restoring sustainable peace and combating political violence? The case of the waiting mothers in Turkey opens a new window for revising the concept of motherhood identity and its power in formulating public policies. While staying faithful to traditional expectations of motherhood, there is a need to consider a role for motherhood in combating extremism beyond the household framework. The case of the waiting mothers is a successful story of mothers who decided to step out of the private sphere of their household and to exercise their power of motherhood in sociopolitical activism. Psychopolitics of motherhood is capable of developing motherhood beyond its protective duties of mothers and modifies their identity as mentors and leaders in public sphere. Along with this argument and in practice, the waiting mothers in Turkey could also make impact on the long-lasting gender stereotypes of their society as well. As discussed earlier, by pushing the traditional patriarchal boundaries, the waiting mothers improved the condition of women within their localities. Public involvement of women in political activism against extremism should be viewed as a progressive approach to utilize motherhood as a binding element to bring together different political and social entities including the governments and civil societies. The literature on sociopolitical activism identifies several identities capable of creating political mobilization including ethnic, religious, and gender identities. However, another strong identity capable of mobilizing mass political protests is significantly sidelined in the Middle East: motherhood. Motherhood contains a universal kind of legitimacy which can bridge over different societal and political gaps within societies and to bring together and to mobilize various segments of a society for a common objective. The case of the waiting mothers in Turkey clearly demonstrates the utilization of this capacity where these mothers could unite various sectors of the Turkish public together with different segments within the Turkish politics for achieving the common goal of countering terrorism and political violence.

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The case of the waiting mothers also proved that the power of media which is usually understood destructive for mothers of extremists can be positively utilized. One of the main reasons for the success of the waiting mothers’ campaign is argued to be the support they received from media both nationally and internationally. Motherhood identity once again demonstrated its capability of overcoming different sociopolitical fractions in favor of national interests. Utilizing motherhood to motivate and justify political action is significantly missing in the post-conflict public policy discourse throughout MENA. The role of mothers in public policies related to combating terrorism is still confined within the household as the detectors of early radicalization signs among their family members. Terrorism and political violence are the major challenges the war-torn societies in MENA are facing now. Any effective post-conflict public policy should have a specific plan for restoring sustainable peace and political settlement. The case of the waiting mothers in Turkey has practically demonstrated how public policymakers in MENA can be benefited from the psychopolitics of motherhood to effectively unite and mobilize the society to combat terrorism and political extremism. As countries such as Iraq and Syria are gradually entering the post-conflict phase, there is a need for effective utilization of motherhood in their national public policies for combating terrorism. Thousands of Iraqis and Syrians have joined the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in different capacities. While the ISIS caliphate has fallen, there are still thousands of ISIS fighters operating within the two countries and challenging sociopolitical stability in both countries. Mothers of these ISIS members can play a significantly effective role in the post-­ conflict public policies in Iraq and Syria to confront political violence in a sustainable manner. Public policymakers can use the case of the waiting mothers in Turkey as a practical example to engage mothers in a bottom-up all-inclusive process of peace-­ building, de-radicalization, and at the same time, to overcome gender stereotypes. Motherhood can be instrumented as a biding factor to further narrow the ethnic and religious gaps in the highly fragmented societies in MENA. The case of waiting mothers in Turkey also demonstrates the variety of ways by which motherhood and its affiliated psychopolitics can contribute to public policy for countering terrorism and extremism especially in MENA.  The case of the waiting mothers in Turkey clearly demonstrates that the role played by mothers in countering extremism can go way beyond as only entry points for de-radicalization and prevention efforts within the current public policies. They can be active and reliable partners throughout the whole process of post-conflict public policies as well. It’s also crucial to keep in mind that such powerful grassroots movements are constantly at risk of appropriation by outside parties, particularly by governmental organizations. Because the waiting mothers’ movement in Turkey has been so successful, the government is trying to take over and control it. The government has made several attempts to use the waiting mothers as a tool to further its political agenda against the PKK. The battle now ahead of the movement is how to stay loyal to its initial objectives and away from the political interests of third parties.

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Conclusion We conclude this chapter with a call to academicians, scholars, policymakers, and practitioners to participate in furthering this effort. Reviewing the literature reveals some of the efforts made by different social sectors in various societies to utilize the potential power of motherhood to restore peace and stability. However, many of such efforts are not well documented and reflected. There is a need for policymakers in MENA to be aware of these grassroots efforts and to try collecting and organizing these efforts. The case of the waiting mothers in Turkey proves that a well-­ coordinated and organized movement can attract better societal support and media coverage. This in turn helps the voices of these mothers to be better heard by a wider number of people around the world. At the same time, collecting and organizing such grassroots projects will provide a platform for them to correspond to each other, to share success stories, and to learn from each other. Social movements are not one-size-fits-all. Localization of objectives, strategies, and tactics is vital for the success of any social movement. However, being aware of successful movements such as the waiting mothers in Turkey will assist similar community action programs around the world to adopt innovative approaches and to gradually increase their influence and impact over local and national policymakers. Notwithstanding the power of motherhood in countering extremism, they have been mostly marginalized in the process of defining, designing, and implementing public policies concerning security, counter-extremism, and counter-terrorism. Looking at grassroots initiatives such as the waiting mothers of Turkey can open a new chapter in engaging the psychopolitics of motherhood into the public policy arena. From the academic point of view, drawing on the collection of these social movements can enrich the current literature on psychopolitics of motherhood in postconflict public policies and further develop grounded theories and normative prescriptions on this subject. Social movements such as the waiting mothers in Turkey and similar programs in other countries can provide useful guidance for future work by academics and practitioners alike.

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Index

A Agency, 3–18, 21, 22, 26, 34, 35, 39–53, 58–60, 62–64, 66, 67, 69–72, 76, 78, 82, 92–105, 110, 111, 113, 123, 125, 126, 146, 149, 151, 153, 158, 159, 171 Aggression, 77, 132, 156 Am’ari (Refugee Camp), 114–122 Argentina, 13, 14, 39–53, 166, 168 B Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), 130–132, 134, 135, 137, 140–142, 147, 151, 152, 157 C Capacity building, 168 Care ethics, 8, 9, 11 Care work, 15, 23, 24, 26–30, 34, 45 Civil society, 2, 8, 42–44, 63, 64, 66, 67, 72, 103, 149, 153, 173 Collaboration, 2, 50, 150, 154 Combatant, 16, 76–87, 93–95 Communication, 27, 30, 31, 63, 154, 157 Conflict, 2, 3, 12, 16, 40, 42, 47, 49, 52, 57–72, 76–87, 92–95, 97, 103, 110–112, 130–132, 146–151, 154–157, 159, 164, 166, 169, 173, 174 Countering violent extremism (CVE), 15, 17, 22, 24, 26, 27, 33, 34

D Decision making, 58, 65–67, 78, 104, 155, 156, 159 Democracy, 13, 14, 40–44, 49–52, 66, 146, 147, 167 De-radicalization, 34, 35, 167, 173, 174 Dichotomy, 17, 135, 136, 171, 172 Discrimination, 110, 139, 147, 154 E Empowerment, 103, 122–126, 148 Ethnicity, 7, 15, 60, 61, 66, 68, 92, 97, 133, 141, 149 F Family, 1, 2, 7, 8, 13, 14, 22–25, 27, 28, 30, 31, 33–35, 45, 58, 60, 65, 66, 70, 79, 81–85, 87, 98, 103, 111, 115–117, 119, 121–125, 131, 134, 136–138, 140, 142, 151, 153, 155, 157, 164, 165, 167–172, 174 Feminism, 9, 44, 76, 78, 94, 95, 104 Fratricidal killings, 62 G Gendered politics, 14, 61 Gender essentialism, 58, 155–159 Gender hierarchies, 76, 158, 171

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 D. Ü. Arıboğan, H. Khelghat-Doost (eds.), Constructing Motherhood Identity Against Political Violence, Contributions to International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36538-6

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180 Gender norms, 43, 61, 77, 114 Gender stereotypes, 76, 111, 158, 173, 174 Genocide, 14, 17, 51, 130–143 Grief, 9, 15, 16, 24, 25, 29, 39, 49–52, 114, 116, 117, 122, 125 H Hijos por la Identidad y la Justicia contra el Olvido y el Silencio (HIJOS), see Sons and Daughters for Identity and Justice against Forgetting and Silence Human rights, 2, 41, 43, 44, 46, 51, 60, 63, 68, 93, 103, 120, 135, 154 I Identity, vi, viii, ix, 1–4, 7, 10, 13, 15, 17, 18, 24, 30, 40, 50, 58, 60, 61, 65, 66, 68, 71, 76, 77, 92–94, 96–100, 102–105, 109–126, 131, 133–135, 138, 140, 149, 150, 165, 167–170, 173, 174 Ideology, 62, 77, 112, 114, 152 Imprisonment, 16, 17, 35, 76, 77, 80, 82, 84, 86, 87, 110 India, 15, 57–72 Integration, ix Intersectionality, 92, 95, 96, 148 Iraqi mothers, 92, 93, 95, 97, 99, 100, 102–105 Irish republican army, 79 Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), 21, 23, 24, 26–32, 169, 174 Islam/religion, viii, 16, 28, 29, 32, 33, 114, 115, 120–122, 125, 132–134 Israel, 110, 112, 115, 168 occupation, 110 soldiers, 113, 115, 117, 119, 120, 122, 123 J Justice, 7, 41, 43, 48–53, 58, 65, 71, 79, 99–101, 103, 140, 146, 156, 166 K Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), 165, 168–172, 174 L Leadership, 24, 60, 63, 67, 159 Legitimacy, 13–15, 60, 68, 142, 157–160, 173 Liberation, 94, 95, 113, 147

Index Loss, 9, 22, 24, 29, 34, 49, 87, 98, 100, 110, 114–122, 125, 136, 139–141 M Madres contra el Paco, see Mothers against Paco Madres de Plaza de Mayo, see Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo Mamà Cultiva Argentina, see Mom Cultivates Argentina Martyr, 23, 26, 101, 102, 115, 118, 119, 121, 125, 152 Masculinity, 77, 93, 103, 111, 113, 167 Maternity, 6–8, 11, 12, 15, 92 Matrix of domination, 92–105 Media, 23, 25–30, 32, 34, 35, 46, 70–72, 100, 140, 141, 152, 164–166, 172, 174, 175 Memory activism, 14, 131, 135–138, 140, 141 Middle East, 30, 164, 165, 167, 173 Militarization, 15, 47, 58, 59, 61, 65 Mom Cultivates Argentina, 40–42, 47–49, 52, 53 Motherhood, 24, 40, 58, 76, 92, 110, 136, 146, 165 Motherhood identity, 1–4, 24, 30, 68, 93, 104, 105, 165, 167–170, 173, 174 Mothers against Paco, 40–42, 44, 46–49, 51–53 Mothers for Life, 23, 27, 33 Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, 40–51, 53, 166, 168 N Nationalism, 16, 25, 61, 77, 81, 112, 114, 120–122, 125, 138, 147, 152, 157 Negotiation, 3, 58, 62, 66, 72, 78, 80, 95, 97, 103, 105, 112, 148 Non-governmental organization (NGO), 15, 134, 139, 142, 148, 150, 154 Non-state armed groups, 78, 79 Non violent behaviour, 76 Norms, 6, 25, 58–61, 64, 65, 67–70, 72, 76, 77, 86, 110, 114, 118, 124 The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 130, 147, 152 Northern Ireland (NI), 2, 3, 16, 76, 78–82, 84, 87 North Macedonia, 15, 130, 146–160 O Oppression, 13, 16, 17, 59, 62, 69, 92, 93, 95–98, 100, 104, 105, 110, 111, 113, 148

Index P Palestine land, 115 national identity, 110, 112 Patriarchy, 16, 40, 52, 57–72, 158, 167 Peace, 10, 23, 40, 58, 76, 92, 146, 164 Peace activism, 15, 146–160 Peace-building, 15, 103, 174 Peace-making, 58, 62, 65 Political motherhood, 40–42, 45, 52, 53, 57–72 Political participation, 15, 41–43, 155–159, 173 Political psychology, 16, 164–167 Political violence, 1–4, 12, 17, 22, 25, 33, 39, 40, 44, 53, 58, 92–95, 99, 103–105, 110, 111, 113, 125, 126, 149–155, 164–175 Politics of transgression, 77–78 Positionality, 8–11, 17, 149 Power, 3, 9, 15, 17, 27, 41–43, 48, 57, 59, 65, 69, 76, 77, 96, 99, 110–112, 126, 130–143, 148, 149, 152, 157, 159, 173–175 Prison, 16, 30, 34, 44, 52, 77, 79–87, 115, 118, 120, 121 Private sphere, 79, 102, 124, 167, 168, 170, 171, 173 Psychology, 23, 87, 98, 111, 114–117, 126, 142, 154, 164, 165, 167 Public policy, 164, 166–169, 173–175 Public sphere, 7, 27, 43, 64, 67, 76, 78, 86, 102, 124, 166, 167, 171, 173 R Radicalization, 2, 22, 23, 27, 33, 34, 164, 165, 167, 174 Reflexivity, 8–10, 17, 148, 149 Refugees, 34, 115, 123, 136, 139, 150, 152, 153, 155, 159 Religious extremism, 168 Resistance, 12, 13, 16, 17, 58, 59, 61, 62, 64, 67–72, 85, 96–105, 110–126, 133, 135, 139, 169 Rights, 2, 3, 6, 7, 12, 40, 41, 43, 44, 46, 50–52, 57, 60, 65, 66, 68, 69, 71, 72, 79, 86, 93, 103, 110, 116, 120, 135, 136, 154 S Security, 7, 9–13, 35, 46, 68, 71, 79, 85, 94, 95, 99–101, 103, 104, 120, 146, 152–154, 156, 158, 168, 175 Social hierarchies, 131, 170–171

181 Social power, 130–143 Social practices, 77, 130, 171 Sons and Daughters for Identity and Justice against Forgetting and Silence (HIJOS), 50, 51 Srebrenica, 14, 130–143 State violence, 40, 41, 44, 46, 48–50, 52 Strategy, 22, 42, 58, 61, 64, 87, 96, 100, 101, 103, 121, 152, 157, 159, 164, 175 Suffering collective, 116–118 pain, 116 T Terrorism, 22–28, 30, 32–35, 43, 47, 49–51, 53, 70, 165, 167, 170, 172–174 Trauma, 16, 24, 84, 86, 110–126, 136, 142, 172 Turkey, 16, 30, 164–175 U United Nations (UN), 2, 40, 52, 101, 130, 137, 138 United States (US), 22, 27–35, 40, 46, 47, 147, 166, 168 V Victimhood, 59, 70, 71, 93, 135, 137 Violence, vi–ix, 1–18, 22, 25, 26, 28, 32, 33, 39, 41, 43, 44, 46, 48–53, 58, 60, 62, 63, 65, 69, 70, 77–79, 85, 92–95, 97–99, 101–105, 110–119, 125, 126, 130–135, 142, 147, 149–156, 158, 159, 163–175 political, 1–4, 12, 17, 25, 33, 39, 40, 44, 53, 58, 92–95, 99, 103, 104, 110, 111, 113, 125, 126, 132–135, 149–155, 164–175 Vulnerability, 135 W Waiting mothers, 164–175 War, 12–14, 22, 34, 41, 42, 44, 47–49, 58, 62, 77–79, 83, 85, 92–95, 98, 112, 114, 130–133, 138–140, 142, 147, 148, 150, 152–159, 166, 167, 172 Z Žepa, 131, 134, 139