Until 8pm @ TW2 9.04, Tower 1, Clement’s Inn, LSE

Speaker: Nayanika Mookherjee
Discussants: Naila Kabeer, Denisa Kostovicova
Chair: Marsha Henry

In Spectral Wound, Nayanika Mookherjee counters the assumption of silence relating to wartime rape and maps out the circulation of public memories related to the sexual violence of the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 (Muktijuddho). This public memory manifests in the internationally unprecedented state designation of the raped women as  birangonas  (‘brave women’) in 1971; an extensive 45 year old archive of visual and literary representations of the raped woman dating back to 1971; and human rights testimonies of poor and middle class birangonas since the 1990s.

In critically examining the pervasiveness of the birangona construction, the book decentres the prevalent understandings of stigma, silence, honour, shame and reparations relating to wartime rape and opens the possibility for a more politico-economic and ethical inquiry into the sexuality of war. Read more

Nayanika Mookherjee is the Research Director and Reader in the Anthropology Department in Durham University.

Naila Kabeer is Professor of Gender and Development at the Gender Institute and at the Department of International Development at LSE.

Denisa Kostovicova is Associate Professor in Global Politics at the Government Department and a Research Fellow at the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit at the Department of International Development at LSE.

Marsha Henry (chair) is Deputy Director of the Centre for Women, Peace and Security and Associate Professor in the Gender Institute at LSE.

Twitter hashtag for this event: #LSESpectralWound

This event is free to attend and open to all, with no ticket or pre-registration required.

http://www.lse.ac.uk/WomenPeaceSecurity/events/2016/spectralWound.aspx

October 3, 2016