Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T18:16:27.409Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Beyond Feminism? Jineolojî and the Kurdish Women's Freedom Movement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2020

Nadje Al-Ali Open the ORCID record for Nadje Al-Ali [Opens in a new window]  and
Isabel Käser Open the ORCID record for Isabel Käser [Opens in a new window]
Nadje Al-Ali
Affiliation:
Brown University
Isabel Käser
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Jineolojî, the women's science proposed and developed by the Kurdish Women's Freedom Movement, has become central to its transnational organizing both in the Middle East and in Europe and the Americas. Activists in the Kurdish women's movement critique positivist and androcentric forms of knowledge production as well as liberal feminism. They instead propose Jineolojî, which aims to rediscover women's histories and restore women's central place in society. Based on a series of interviews with Kurdish women involved in developing Jineolojî, this article first situates Jineolojî within wider transnational and decolonial feminist approaches and then draws out the main ideas constituting Jineolojî. We focus on the ways Jineolojî speaks to ongoing discussions within transnational feminist knowledge production. Our article critically assesses the claim of Kurdish women activists who present Jineolojî as a new science and paradigm that goes beyond feminism while developing our argument that Jineolojî represents an important continuation of critical interventions made by marginalized women activists and academics transnationally. Moreover, our article illustrates that Jineolojî provides a helpful ideological underpinning for and epistemology of Kurdish women's political struggle for gender-based equality and justice.

Keywords

Kurdish women's movementfeminist knowledge productiontransnational feminismdecolonial feminismepistemologyJineolojîMiddle East
Type
Research Article
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , March 2022 , pp. 212 - 243
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The two authors contributed equally to this article; their names are listed in alphabetical order.

References

REFERENCES

Abdo, Nahla. 1993. “Middle East Politics through Feminist Lenses: Negotiating the Terms of Solidarity.” Alternatives 18 (1): 29–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Al-Ali, Nadje, and Pratt, Nicola, eds. 2009a. What Kind of Liberation? Women and the Occupation of Iraq. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Al-Ali, Nadje, and Pratt, Nicola, eds. 2009b. Women and War in the Middle East: Transnational Perspectives. London: Zed Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Al-Ali, Nadje, and Pratt, Nicola. 2011. “Between Nationalism and Women's Rights: The Kurdish Women's Movement in Iraq.” Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 4 (3): 339–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Al-Ali, Nadje, and Sayegh, Ghiwa. 2019. “Feminist and Queer Perspectives on West Asia.” In Queer Asia, eds. Luther, Jonathan Daniel and Loh, Jennifer Ung. London: Zed Books, 243–66.Google Scholar
Al-Ali, Nadje, and Tas, Latif. 2016. “Kurdish Women's Battle Continues against State and Patriarchy, Says First Female Co-Mayor of Diyarbakir.” openDemocracy, August 12. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/kurdish-women-s-battle-continues-against-state-and-patriarchy-/ (accessed September 14, 2020).Google Scholar
Al-Ali, Nadje, and Tas, Latif. 2017. “‘War Is like a Blanket’: Feminist Convergences in Kurdish and Turkish Women's Rights Activism for Peace.” Journal of Middle East Women's Studies 13 (3): 354–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Al-Ali, Nadje, and Tas, Latif. 2018a. “Dialectics of Struggle: Challenges to the Kurdish Women's Movement.” Middle East Centre Paper Series 22, London School of Economics. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/87484/ (accessed September 14, 2020).Google Scholar
Al-Ali, Nadje, and Tas, Latif. 2018b. “Reconsidering Nationalism and Feminism: The Kurdish Political Movement in Turkey.” Nations and Nationalism 24 (2): 453–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Al-Ali, Nadje, and Tas, Latif. 2019. “Clashes, Collaborations and Convergences: Evolving Relations of Turkish and Kurdish Women's Rights Activists.” Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 21 (3): 304–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alexander, M. Jacqui. 2005. Pedagogies of Crossing: Meditations on Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory, and the Sacred. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alexander, M. Jacqui, and Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 2010. “Cartographies of Knowledge and Power: Transnational Feminism as Radical Praxis.” In Critical Transnational Feminist Praxis, eds. Swarr, Amanda Lock and Nagar, Richa. Albany: State University of New York Press, 23–45.Google Scholar
Alvarez, Sonia E., Friedman, Elisabeth Jay, Beckman, Ericka, Blackwell, Maylei, Chinchilla, Norma Stoltz, Lebon, Nathalie, Navarro, Marysa, and Tobar, Marcela Ríos. 2002. “Encountering Latin American and Caribbean Feminisms.” Signs 28 (2): 537–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Michael L. 1987. “Changing the Curriculum in Higher Education.” Signs 12 (2): 222–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arat, Yeşim, and Pamuk, Şevket. 2019. Turkey between Democracy and Authoritarianism. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bacchetta, Paola, and Haritaworn, Jin. 2016. “There Are Many Transatlantics: Homonationalism, Homotransnationalism and Feminist-Queer-Trans of Colour Theories and Practices.” In Transatlantic Conversations: Feminism as Travelling Theory, eds. Davis, Kathy and Evans, Mary. London: Routledge, 121–37.Google Scholar
Baronnet, Bruno, and Breña, Mariana Ortega. 2008. “Rebel Youth and Zapatista Autonomous Education.” Latin American Perspectives 35 (4): 112–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Begikhani, Nazand, Hamelink, Wendelmoet, and Weiss, Nerina. 2018. “Theorising Women and War in Kurdistan: A Feminist and Critical Perspective.” Kurdish Studies 6 (1): 5–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boxer, Marilyn. 2002. “Women's Studies as Women's History.” Women's Studies Quarterly 30 (3–4): 42–51.Google Scholar
Bozarslan, Hamit. 2000. “‘Why the Armed Struggle?’ Understanding the Violence in Kurdistan of Turkey.” In The Kurdish Conflict in Turkey: Obstacles and Changes for Peace and Democracy, eds. Ibrahim, Ferhad and Gürbey, Gülistan. Münster: LIT Verlag, 17–30.Google Scholar
Bozarslan, Hamit. 2014. “The Kurds and Middle Eastern ‘State of Violence’: The 1980s and 2010s.” Kurdish Studies 2 (1): 4–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Wendy. 1995. States of Injury, Power, and Freedom in Late Modernity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Çağlayan, Handan. 2012. “From Kawa the Blacksmith to Ishtar the Goddess: Gender Constructions in Ideological-Political Discourses of the Kurdish Movement in Post-1980 Turkey: Possibilities and Limits.” European Journal of Turkish Studies 14. http://journals.openedition.org/ejts/4657 (accessed September 14, 2020).Google Scholar
Çağlayan, Handan. 2020. Women in the Kurdish Movement: Mothers, Comrades, Goddesses. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Çaha, Ömer. 2011. “The Kurdish Women's Movement: A Third-Wave Feminism within the Turkish Context.” Turkish Studies 12 (3): 435–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cansiz, Sakine. 2014. Mein ganzes Leben war ein Kampf. Band 2: Gefängnisjahre [My whole life was a struggle: Prison years]. Neuss: Mezopotamien Verlag.Google Scholar
Cansiz, Sakine. 2018. Mein ganzes Leben war ein Kampf: 3. Band Guerilla [My whole life was a struggle: Guerrilla]. Neuss: Mezopotamien Verlag.Google Scholar
Çetin, Zülfukar. 2016. “The Dynamics of the Queer Movement in Turkey before and during the Conservative AKP Government.” Working Paper 2016/01, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, January. https://www.swp-berlin.org/fileadmin/contents/products/arbeitspapiere/WP_RG_Europe_2016_01.pdf (accessed September 14, 2020).Google Scholar
Childe, V. Gordon. 1952. What Happened in History? London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Collins, Patricia Hill. 1990. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Boston: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
Dhamoon, Rita. 2015. “A Feminist Approach to Decolonizing Anti-Racism: Rethinking Transnationalism, Intersectionality, and Settler Colonialism.” feral feminism 4: 20–37.Google Scholar
Dirik, Dilar. 2019. “Methodology as a Site of Struggle.” https://methodsinquestion.co.uk/seminar-recordings (October 16, 2019).Google Scholar
El-Tayeb, Fatima. 2012. “‘Gays Who Cannot Properly Be Gay’: Queer Muslims in the Neoliberal European City.” European Journal of Women's Studies 19 (1): 79–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
El Said, Maha, Meari, Lena, and Pratt, Nicola, eds. 2015. Rethinking Gender in Revolutions and Resistance: Lessons from the Arab World. London: Zed Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erdem, İlyas, Tan, Yeter, and Kibar, Zana. 2019. “Report on Human Rights Violations against Women and Their Experiences during the Curfews and Forced Migration.” Migration Monitoring Association (Göç Izleme Derneği).Google Scholar
Exo, Mechthild. 2020. “Making Connections: Jineolojî, Women's Liberation, and Building Peace.” In Building Free Life: Dialogues with Öcalan, edited by International Initiative “Freedom for Abdullah Öcalan—Peace in Kurdistan.” Oakland, CA: PM Press, 147–66.Google Scholar
Falcón, Sylvanna M. 2016. “Transnational Feminism as a Paradigm for Decolonizing the Practice of Research: Identifying Feminist Principles and Methodology Criteria for US-Based Scholars.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 37 (1): 174–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flach, Anja. 2007. Frauen in der kurdischen Guerilla: Motivation, Identität und Geschlechterverhältnis in der Frauenarmee der PKK [Women in the Kurdish guerrilla: Motivation, identity and gender in the Women's Army of the PKK]. Cologne: PapyRossa Verlag.Google Scholar
Gimbutas, Marija. 1989. The Language of the Goddess: Unearthing the Hidden Symbols of Western Civilization. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd.Google Scholar
Gimbutas, Marija. 1991. The Civilization of the Goddess. San Francisco: HarperOne.Google Scholar
Grojean, Olivier. 2017. La Révolution Kurde: Le PKK et La Fabrique d'une Utopie [The Kurdish Revolution: The PKK and the making of a utopia]. Paris: La Découverte.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gunes, Cengiz. 2012. The Kurdish National Movement in Turkey: From Protest to Resistance. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gunes, Cengiz. 2019. “Developments in the Kurdish Issue in Syria and Turkey in 2017.” European Yearbook of Minority Issues 16 (1): 211–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harding, Sandra. 1986. The Science Question in Feminism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Hartsock, Nancy C. M. 1983. “The Feminist Standpoint: Developing the Ground for a Specifically Feminist Historical Materialism.” In Discovering Reality, eds. Harding, Sandra and Hintikka, Merrill B.. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 283–310.Google Scholar
Hasso, Frances Susan. 2011. Consuming Desires: Family Crisis and the State in the Middle East. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Hasso, Frances Susan, and Salime, Zakia, eds. 2016. Freedom without Permission: Bodies and Space in the Arab Revolutions. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Hatem, Mervat F. 1992. “Economic and Political Liberation in Egypt and the Demise of State Feminism.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 24 (2): 321–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isik, Ruken. 2019. “Kurdish Struggle for Democracy and Gender Equality in Syria.” Revista Periferias. https://revistaperiferias.org/en/materia/kurdish-struggle-for-democracy-and-gender-equality-in-syria/ (accessed May 5, 2020).Google Scholar
Jineolojî Committee Europe. 2018. Jineolojî. 2nd ed. Neuss: Mezopotamien Verlag.Google Scholar
Jongerden, Joost, and Akkaya, Ahmet Hamdi. 2013. “Democratic Confederalism as a Kurdish Spring: The PKK and the Quest for Radical Democracy.” In The Kurdish Spring: Geopolitical Changes and the Kurds, eds. Ahmed, Mohammed M. A. and Gunter, Michael M.. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 163–85.Google Scholar
Kandiyoti, Deniz. 2013. “Fear and Fury: Women and Post-Revolutionary Violence.” openDemocracy, January 10. http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/deniz-kandiyoti/fear-and-fury-women-and-post-revolutionary-violence (accessed September 14, 2020).Google Scholar
Kandiyoti, Deniz, Al-Ali, Nadje, and Poots, Kathryn Spellman, eds. 2019. Gender, Governance and Islam. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Käser, Isabel. 2018. “Militant Femininity: The Kurdish Women's Liberation Movement between Violence and Resistance.” PhD diss., SOAS University of London.Google Scholar
Käser, Isabel. 2019. “‘Mountain Life Is Difficult but Beautiful!’ The Gendered Process of Becoming ‘Free’ in the PKK Guerrilla.” In Kurds in Turkey: Ethnographies of Heterogenous Experiences, eds. Çelik, Adnan and Drechslova, Lucie. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 11–30.Google Scholar
Käser, Isabel. 2020. “A Struggle within a Struggle: A History of the Kurdistan Women's Liberation Movement 1978–2019.” In The Cambridge History of the Kurds, eds. Bozarslan, Hamit, Gunes, Cengiz, and Yadirgi, Veli. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kışanak, Gültan. 2018. Kürt Siyasetinin Mor Rengi [The purple color of Kurdish politics]. Facsimile ed. Ankara: Dipnot Yayınları.Google Scholar
Knapp, Michael, Flach, Anja, and Ayboga, Ercan. 2016. Revolution in Rojava: Democratic Autonomy and Women's Liberation in Syrian Kurdistan. London: Pluto Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, Desiree. 2018. “Neo-Liberalism and Feminism in the South African Academy.” In Gender Studies and the New Academic Governance, ed. Kahlert, Heike. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, 65–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lugones, Marìa. 2010. “Toward a Decolonial Feminism.” Hypatia 25 (4): 742–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacKinnon, Catherine. 1989. Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Magdy, Rana. 2017. “Egyptian Feminist Movement: A Brief History.” openDemocracy, March 8. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/north-africa-west-asia/egyptian-feminist-movement-brief-history/ (accessed September 14, 2020).Google Scholar
Marcus, Aliza. 2007. Blood and Belief: The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
McDowall, David. 2001. A Modern History of the Kurds. London: I. B.Tauris.Google Scholar
Mhadhbi, Amira. 2012. “State Feminism in Tunisia: Reading between the Lines.” openDemocracy, November 7. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/state-feminism-in-tunisia-reading-between-lines/ (accessed September 14, 2020).Google Scholar
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 2003. Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 2013. “Transnational Feminist Crossings: On Neoliberalism and Radical Critique.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 38 (4): 967–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muñoz, José Esteban. 1999. Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Nagar, Richa, and Swarr, Amanda Lock. 2010. “Introduction: Theorizing Transnational Feminist Praxis.” In Critical Transnational Feminist Praxis, eds. Swarr, Amanda Lock and Nagar, Richa. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1–20.Google Scholar
Neven, Brecht, and Schäfers, Marlene. 2017. “Jineology: From Women's Struggles to Social Liberation.” ROAR Magazine, November 25. https://roarmag.org/essays/jineology-kurdish-women-movement/ (accessed September 16, 2020).Google Scholar
Öcalan, Abdullah. 2009. Özgürlük Sosyolojisi: Demokratik Uygarlık Manifestosu #3 [The sociology of freedom: Manifesto of the democratic civilization]. Neuss: Mezopotamien Verlag.Google Scholar
Öcalan, Abdullah. 2010. Jenseits von Staat, Macht und Gewalt [Beyond state, power, and violence]. Neuss: Mezopotamien Verlag.Google Scholar
Öcalan, Abdullah. 2011. Democratic Confederalism. Cologne: Transmedia Publishing Ltd.Google Scholar
Öcalan, Abdullah. 2013. Liberating Life: Woman's Revolution. Cologne: International Initiative.Google Scholar
Öcalan, Abdullah. 2017. The Political Thought of Abdullah Öcalan: Kurdistan, Women's Revolution and Democratic Confederalism. London: Pluto Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Öcalan, Abdullah. 2020. The Sociology of Freedom: Manifesto of the Democratic Civilization. Oakland, CA: PM Press.Google Scholar
Pateman, Carole. 1988. The Sexual Contract. London: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Pesole, Betta. 2012. “The Feminist ‘Successor Science Project’ as a Transnational Epistemological Community.” e-cadernos CES 18. http://journals.openedition.org/eces/1509 (accessed September 16, 2020).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Runyan, Anne Sisson. 2018. “Decolonizing Knowledges in Feminist World Politics.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 20 (1): 3–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sandal, Hakan. 2017. “Redirecting the Colonial Gaze: ‘Decolonising Queer Liberation’ or Disciplining the Kurds?” openDemocracy, September 23. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/redirecting-colonial-gaze/ (accessed September 22, 2020).Google Scholar
Santos, Boaventura de Sousa. 2014. Epistemologies of the South: Justice against Epistemicide. Boulder, CO: Paradigm.Google Scholar
Schmidinger, Thomas. 2018. Rojava: Revolution, War and the Future of Syria's Kurds. London: Pluto Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Segato, Rita Laura. 2018. “A Manifesto in Four Themes.” Critical Times 1 (1): 188–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simpson, Leanne Betasamosake. 2011. Dancing On Our Turtle's Back: Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgence, and a New Emergence. Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring.Google Scholar
Sirman, Nüket. 2016. “When Antigone Is a Man: Feminist ‘Trouble’ in the Late Colony.” In Vulnerability in Resistance, eds. Butler, Judith, Gambetti, Zeynep, and Sabsay, Leticia. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 191–210.Google Scholar
Smith, Dorothy E. 1974. “Women's Perspective as a Radical Critique of Sociology.” Sociological Inquiry 44 (1): 7–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. 1999. Decolonializing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Soto, Sandra. 2005. “Where in the Transnational World Are U.S. Women of Color?” In Women's Studies for the Future: Foundations, Interrogations, Politics, eds. Beins, Agatha Meryl and Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 111–24.Google Scholar
Wylie, Alison. 2003. “Why Standpoint Matters.” In Science and Other Cultures: Issues in Philosophies of Science and Technology, eds. Figueroa, Robert and Harding, Sandra G.. New York: Routledge, 26–48.Google Scholar
Xu, Feng. 2009. “Chinese Feminisms Encounter International Feminisms: Identity, Power and Knowledge Production.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 11 (2): 196–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yüksel, Metin. 2006. “The Encounter of Kurdish Women with Nationalism in Turkey.” Middle Eastern Studies 42 (5): 777–802.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zaki, Hind Ahmed. 2015. “El-Sissi's Women? Shifting Gender Discourses and the Limits of State Feminism.” Égypte/Monde Arabe 13: 39–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar