Gendered Voices from Post-conflict Swat: The Conundrum of Agency and Implications for Interventions at Grassroots, Advocacy, and Policy Levels
Lubna N. Chaudhry*
The presentation will use data based on fieldwork in post-conflict Swat (December 2009-January 2010; summer 2010; December 2010-January 2011) to grapple with conceptions of agency in feminist literature on Third World women. Despite the rampant stereotyping of Pashtun women as completely oppressed by an immutable patriarchal system, my study provides evidence of the complex ways in which women in Swat negotiate the power relations circumscribing their lines, coming across as social actors and reflexive subjects. Additionally, some of these women (who by the way are not all Pashtun, since Swatis do come from other backgrounds) emerged as co-producers of knowledge during my fieldwork stints, providing key critical insights into matters ranging from the operation of local patriarchies, the broader politics of the nation-state with respect to Swat, the genesis of the Taliban in Swat, the machinations of state repressive and intelligence forces, and the survival strategies of families and during and after the conflict. Still, even these women did not identify with any form of feminist consciousness, for instance, emphatically declaring that the only useful aspect of women’s NGOs was that they could bring in supplementary forms of income to their family.  My feminist desires for locating agency were in particular put to the test by the reality of the support, economic and ideological, the Swati Taliban received from women in particular regions in Swat (especially women in their thirties and early forties; older women were much more skeptical and wary of them).  How we do theorize this particular manifestation of agency, which was not only anti-women, but also paved the way for the armed conflict in the region?  The strongest contestation of the Taliban’s decree that women could not go to markets came from men, partially because they were allowed “voice” but also because they did not want to do more work (many women were actually pleased they could avoid the crowded markets).  The analysis highlights the challenge of sighting “agency” and describing “agents” without understanding the multi-layered power relations demarcating on the ground realities, even as it reiterates that a unilateral focus on oppression is not a solution.  Both over-reading agency and over-emphasizing oppression lead to misdirected interventions at grassroots, advocacy and policy levels.
* Dr. Lubna N. Chaudhry is a Visiting Fellow at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad, Pakistan; and, an Associate Professor at the State University of New York, Binghamton, USA.