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The Spectral Wound
Sexual Violence, Public Memories, and the Bangladesh War of 1971
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Nayanika Mookherjee
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2015
About this book
In this ethnography of sexual violence during the 1971 Bangladesh War for Independence, Nayanika Mookherjee shows how the public celebration of the hundreds of thousands of rape victims—called "birangonas" by the state—works to homogenize and silence the experiences of these women.
Author / Editor information
Nayanika Mookherjee is Reader in Socio-Cultural Anthropology at Durham University.
Veena Das is Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Anthropology at the Johns Hopkins University.
Veena Das is Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Anthropology at the Johns Hopkins University.
Reviews
"The Spectral Wound is an exceptional book. It has thoroughly explored its subject from every conceivable angle in such a way as to give it a real intellectual richness."
-- Nardina Kaur Economic and Political Weekly
"It is a pleasure to review books that offer an innovative reading of important areas of recent scholarship. Nayanika Mookherjee’s book throws an epistemic challenge to previous authors and interpretations on the subject."
-- Rachana Chakraborty Social History
"Mookerjee's exemplary and closely argued The Spectral Wound highlights the central conundrum of making wartime rapes public: heroism, implied and acknowledged by the designation birangona, can only be acquired by making your shame public....[An] uncommonly complex and delicately observed study..."
-- Ritu Menon Women's Review of Books
"[Mookherjee] asks, ‘What would it mean for the politics of identifying wartime rape if we were to highlight how the raped woman folds the experience of sexual violence into her daily socialities, rather than identifying her as a horrific wound?’ That is the central question of this powerful and perceptive book."
-- Michael Lambek Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
"Critical, reflective, and transformative to our understanding of gender violence, memory, and recuperation, Mookherjee’s extraordinary ethnography is undoubtedly essential reading for scholars and students of feminist theory, anthropology, Bangladesh, and South Asia studies."
-- Elora Halim Chowdhury Journal of Asian Studies
"Engaging and lucidly written, The Spectral Wound raises a host of theoretical and ethical considerations. How might we re-conceptualize the experience of wartime rape without reducing survivor subjectivities to their “wounds?” To whom is the feminist activist accountable? . . . This thoughtful and provocative text calls on the reader to revisit such dilemmas instead of taking the answers for granted."
-- Dina M. Siddiqi International Feminist Journal of Politics
"Nayanika Mookherjee’s research is important as a testimonial, a guide, and as a recovery of the individual experiences of those raped in 1971."
-- Maitreyi Dhaka Tribune
Topics
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1 |
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One
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The Weave of National History Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
31 |
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The Archiving of the Birangona Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
47 |
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Khota (Scorn) and the Public Secrecy of Sexual Violence Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
67 |
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Interrogating Local Politics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
91 |
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Embodied Transgressions in the Everyday Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
107 |
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Two
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Rehabilitation Program and Re-membering the Raped Woman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
129 |
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Gendered, Racialized, and Territorial Inscriptions of Sexual Violence during the Bangladesh War Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
159 |
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An Examination of State, Press, Literary, Visual, and Human Rights Accounts, 1971–2001 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
177 |
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Victim, Agent, Traitor? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
228 |
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Three
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Human Rights and the Politics of Transforming Experiences of Wartime Rape “Trauma” into Public Memories Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed |
251 |
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264 |
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277 |
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
October 23, 2015
eBook ISBN:
9780822375227
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
352
Other:
42 illustrations
eBook ISBN:
9780822375227
Audience(s) for this book
Professional and scholarly;
