Paper Short Abstract:

This paper will engage with ideas of agency and resistance by drawing upon early stages of a multi-sited ethnography with Afghan women politicians residing across Europe and Australia. A key connecting point between the women involved in resistance movements is the often un-seen, ‘quiet’ activisms.

Paper Abstract:

This paper unpacks ideas of ‘resistance’ and ‘insurgency’, through the case of Afghan women politicians navigating politics and activism from positions of exile. Saba Mahmood’s work calls on anthropologists to expand definitions of agency, to not be a “synonym for resistance to social norms but as a modality of action”(Mahmood 2009), she raised questions about the relationship between ‘norms’ and individuals both as they ‘perform’ in the world and how they see themselves. Mahmood’s work challenges the connection between an individual’s desires and emotions with their practices and actions. This paper will engage with Mahmood’s ideas and by drawing upon the early stages of a multi-sited ethnography with Afghan women politicians who are navigating spaces of resistance across Europe, and Australia. A key connecting point between the women involved in resistance movements is the often un-seen, ‘quiet’ activisms that happen through craft, shared meals, conversations over tea, and care-work. Audre Lorde (Lorde 1988) argues that for people who are marginalised, care is a form of ‘political warfare’ where engaging in a care-role is a radical act in upholding the right to survive in a system that does not benefit from your survival. This research builds on Lorde’s (1988) work, and Mahmood’s (2009) conceptualisation of agency by drawing on ethnographic research that looks at the roles of care and ‘quiet’ activisms in the lives of Afghan women politicians who are continuing to advocate for their ‘constituents’. Are these quiet activisms not, in-fact radical acts of survival?