EVENT CANCELLED

The past decades have seen a rise in approaches emerging from the margins of the nation-state system, contesting the state and its relationship to justice. While alternative perspectives can at times intervene in dominant discourses and practices in the realm of justice, the ongoing hegemony of the international human rights framework continues to shape 'non-state' actors' imagination of and access to justice, particularly in the aftermath of state violence.

Since the 1990s, and especially from the mid-2000s onwards, the 'Kurdistan freedom movement' shifted aspects of its ideology and practice in a manner that defines the state, in particular the nation-state, along with patriarchy, as the most institutionalized form of power and violence. This, in turn, had implications for the movement's approaches to justice. Today, in a variety of ways, actors within this movement not only seek justice for the violence experienced. In the territories under their governance, they also practice forms of justice, including from women's autonomous perspectives. In both cases, the movement claims to propose 'revolutionary', radical democratic perspectives beyond the state. These practices are not without obstacles and contradictions, however.

Based on in-depth qualitative research and with reference to wider 'non-state' epistemic traditions, this talk will introduce the Kurdistan wpmen's movement's concepts of justice through examples from its transnational political engagements. What are the possibilities and limits of justice-seeking practices beyond the parameters of human rights, liberal democracy, and the nation-state? And what do these tell us about the means of  feminist political action today?

About the speaker

Dilar Dirik is an independent political sociologist, currently based in the UK. She holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Cambridge. Between 2019-2023, she was a postdoctoral researcher and graduate course convener at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, where her research focused on women's resistance struggles, war and forced displacement, state violence, autonomy, resistance, and radical knowledge production. She is the author of the book The Kurdish Women's Movement: History, Theory, Practice (PlutoPress, 2022).

PART OF THE GENDER SEMINAR SERIES

The Gender Centre has developed this series of research seminars in order to offer a platform for exchange for students, doctoral students in particular, and researchers whose work includes a gender perspective. During this monthly series, researchers have the opportunity to discuss their work, meet peers from different disciplines at the Graduate Institute, as well as interact with other students, guest speakers and faculty members.

See the programme of this semester's Gender Seminar Series here.

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