Femmes afghanes en guerre

The destiny of Afghan women has been at the center of a certain political discourse since the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York on September 11, 2001 and the American invasion of Afghanistan which followed. Extensively covered, the subject was nevertheless little-researched by the social sciences. This critical study, the first of its genre, recenters Afghan women’s lives in their historical, social, and ethnographic context while considering the attempted changes by various governments from the beginning of the 20th century until today This work takes into account the elements of continuity and the transformations of women, particularly rural women, in the refugee camps in the Afghan provinces today and permits the evaluation of the veritable influence of multiple agents on site: the state of chronic war, aid programs, democratic setereotypes imported from the West, Iran, the brutal exigences of a globalized economy. And yet women suffered above all the double influence of political Islam and reconfigured tradition, ignored as much by researchers as by humanitarian agencies. It is up to them to negotiate a place at the heart of these multiple states, sometimes at the price of their own existence. This book is the result of a long field study (from 2001 to 2009) and of humanitarian work with women’s associations. [translated from author]