Rape: Politics and Theory in War and Peace

Australian Feminist Studies

Volumn 11, Issue 23, 1996, Pages 147-162

  Nordstrom, Carolyn ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0030543327     PISSN: 08164649     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/08164649.1996.9994811     Document Type: Article

References (66)

1. Cathy Winkler, 'Rape Attack: Ethnography of the Ethnographer' in C. Nordstrom and A. Robben (eds), Cultures in Crises, Fieldwork Under Fire, forthcoming.
2. Michael Taussig, 'Public Secrets', paper presented at the University of California, 1992.
3. Estelle Strizhak and Catherine Harries, 'Sex, Lies and International Law', Refugee Participation Network, no. 15, September 1993, pp. 21-2.
4. Statistics on rape occurrence vary, testifying to its (politically) contested nature. The statistics I use here are the most commonly quoted, and are those used by the professionals in rape centres in both the United States and Australia. See: Diana Russell, Sexual Exploitation: Rape, Child Sexual Abuse, and Sexual Harassment (Sage) Beverly Hills, 1984; Judith Herman, Trauman and Recovery (Basic Books) New York, 1992.
5. Statistics on rape occurrence vary, testifying to its (politically) contested nature. The statistics I use here are the most commonly quoted, and are those used by the professionals in rape centres in both the United States and Australia. See: Diana Russell, Sexual Exploitation: Rape, Child Sexual Abuse, and Sexual Harassment (Sage) Beverly Hills, 1984; Judith Herman, Trauman and Recovery (Basic Books) New York, 1992.
6. Asia-week, 'The Hidden Shame', February 8, 1985, pp. 41-4; Georgina Ashworth, Of Violence & Violation: Women and Human Rights (Change) London, 1985.
7. Asia-week, 'The Hidden Shame', February 8, 1985, pp. 41-4; Georgina Ashworth, Of Violence & Violation: Women and Human Rights (Change) London, 1985.
8. Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery (Basic Books) New York, 1992, p. 61.
9. Herman, Trauma and Recovery, p. 30.
10. Ashworth, Of Violence & Violation, p. 7.
11. Research for this paper is based on several years of fieldwork in both Mozambique and Sri Lanka, as well as shorter periods of fieldwork in other warzones; on research in my home country, the United States, and a five month field residency in Australia.
12. Winkler, 'Rape Attack'.
13. Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich) New York, 1938, p. 147.
14. Jan Pettman, Living in the Margins: Racism, Sexism and Feminism in Australia (Allen & Unwin) St Leonards, 1992; J. Pettman, 'Gendered Knowledge: Aboriginal Women and the Politics of Feminism', Journal of Australian Studies, no. 35, 1992, pp. 120-31. In Jan Pettman, 'National Identity and Security' in Gary Smith and St. John Kettle (eds) Threats Without Enemies (Pluto Press) Leichardt, 1992, pp. 53-68, the author writes: Making explicit the politics of identity leads directly to questions about the politics of voice and representation. There are different ways of naming problems that determine not only what the problems are but also whose problems they are, and who is responsible for them. It is necessary to ask who is speaking and who is being listened to in security debates. What can be said or asked, and what is taboo? Who is silent/silenced in these debates? Who speaks for whom? Who claims to be representative and on what grounds? How do people authorise what they say, and which of the competing discourses inform policy and public representation? Asking these questions keeps the politics of the contest visible. It is precisely this issue of keeping the politics of representation visible that I strive for in this approach.
15. Jan Pettman, Living in the Margins: Racism, Sexism and Feminism in Australia (Allen & Unwin) St Leonards, 1992; J. Pettman, 'Gendered Knowledge: Aboriginal Women and the Politics of Feminism', Journal of Australian Studies, no. 35, 1992, pp. 120-31. In Jan Pettman, 'National Identity and Security' in Gary Smith and St. John Kettle (eds) Threats Without Enemies (Pluto Press) Leichardt, 1992, pp. 53-68, the author writes: Making explicit the politics of identity leads directly to questions about the politics of voice and representation. There are different ways of naming problems that determine not only what the problems are but also whose problems they are, and who is responsible for them. It is necessary to ask who is speaking and who is being listened to in security debates. What can be said or asked, and what is taboo? Who is silent/silenced in these debates? Who speaks for whom? Who claims to be representative and on what grounds? How do people authorise what they say, and which of the competing discourses inform policy and public representation? Asking these questions keeps the politics of the contest visible. It is precisely this issue of keeping the politics of representation visible that I strive for in this approach.
16. Jan Pettman, Living in the Margins: Racism, Sexism and Feminism in Australia (Allen & Unwin) St Leonards, 1992; J. Pettman, 'Gendered Knowledge: Aboriginal Women and the Politics of Feminism', Journal of Australian Studies, no. 35, 1992, pp. 120-31. In Jan Pettman, 'National Identity and Security' in Gary Smith and St. John Kettle (eds) Threats Without Enemies (Pluto Press) Leichardt, 1992, pp. 53-68, the author writes: Making explicit the politics of identity leads directly to questions about the politics of voice and representation. There are different ways of naming problems that determine not only what the problems are but also whose problems they are, and who is responsible for them. It is necessary to ask who is speaking and who is being listened to in security debates. What can be said or asked, and what is taboo? Who is silent/silenced in these debates? Who speaks for whom? Who claims to be representative and on what grounds? How do people authorise what they say, and which of the competing discourses inform policy and public representation? Asking these questions keeps the politics of the contest visible. It is precisely this issue of keeping the politics of representation visible that I strive for in this approach.
17. V.Y. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge (Indiana University Press) Bloomington, 1988.
18. Michael Taussig, Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man (University of Chicago Press) Chicago, 1987.
19. Maria Olujic, 'Coming Home: The Croatian War Experience', in C. Nordstrom and A. Robben (eds), Cultures in Crisis, Fieldwork Under Fire, forthcoming.
20. Winkler, 'Rape Attack'.
21. Pettman, 'Gendered Knowledge: Aboriginal Women and the Politics of Feminism', p. 129.
22. Ashworth, Of Violence and Violation, p. 1.
23. Audrey Bolger, Aboriginal Women and Violence (Australian National University, North Australian Research Unit) Darwin, 1991, p. 81, writes: reading many court transcripts relating to cases of rape, murder, and assaults on women is like reading the minutes of a male club.
24. Ashworth, Of Violence and Violation, p. 7.
25. Judy Atkinson, Working with Violence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Families: The Healing Journey, PhD Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, Department of Humanities, forthcoming.
26. Peter Wallensteen and Karin Axell, 'Armed Conflict at the End of the Cold War, 1989-1992', Journal of Peace Research, vol. 30, no. 3, 1993, pp. 331-46; Ruth Leger Sivard, World Military and Social Expenditures 1991 (World Priorities) Washington, DC, 1991.
27. Peter Wallensteen and Karin Axell, 'Armed Conflict at the End of the Cold War, 1989-1992', Journal of Peace Research, vol. 30, no. 3, 1993, pp. 331-46; Ruth Leger Sivard, World Military and Social Expenditures 1991 (World Priorities) Washington, DC, 1991.
28. As Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will (Penguin) Harmondsworth, 1976, pp. 31-2, writes: Rape has accompanied wars of religion: knights and pilgrims took time off for sexual assault as they marched toward Constantinople in the First Crusade. Rape has accompanied wars of revolution: George Washington's papers for July 22, 1780, record that one Thomas Brown of the Seventh Pennsylvania Regiment was sentenced to death for rape at Paramus, and it was Brown's second conviction at that. Rape in warfare is not bound by definitions of which wars are 'just' or 'unjust'. Rape was a weapon of terror as the German Hun marched through Belgium in World war I. Rape was a weapon of revenge as the Russian Army marched to Berlin in World War II. Rape nourishes in warfare irrespective of nationality or geographic location. Rape got out of hand - 'regrettably', as the foreign minister was later to say - when Pakistani Army battled Bangladesh. Rape reared it head as a way to relieve boredom as American GIs searched and destroyed in the highlands of Vietnam.
29. For an excellent feminist study of the relationships between gender and militarisation in the world today, see Cynthia Enloe, The Morning After: Sexual Politics at the End of the Cold War (University of California Press) Berkeley, 1993.
30. Carolyn Nordstrom, 'Contested Identities, Essentially Contested Powers' in K. Rupesinghe (ed.), Conflict Transformation (Macmillan) London, 1994.
31. Kevin Clements, 'Introduction' in K. Clements (ed.), Peace and Security in the Asia Pacific Region (Dunmore, Palmerston North and United Nations University) Tokyo, 1992, p. 10.
32. Carolyn Nordstrom, 'The Backyard Front' in C. Nordstrom and J. Martin (eds), The Paths to Domination, Resistance, and Terror (University of California Press) Berkeley, 1992, pp. 260-74.
33. Carolyn Nordstrom, 'Women and war: Observations from the Field', Minerva: Quarterly Report on Women and the Military, vol. 9, no. 1, Spring 1991, pp. 1-15.
34. In what is perhaps the final tragic irony, someone had carefully printed, in big block letters, a 'rule' above these pictures that said, in Portuguese (the official Mozambican language) 'It is prohibited to enter a woman who does not bathe. We take only women who bathe and wash clothes'.
35. L.C. Feldman, I. Prica and R. Senjkovic (eds), Fear, Death and Resistance, An Ethnography of War: Croatia 1991-1992 (Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, Matrix Croatia, X-Press) Zagreb, 1992; Olujic, 'Coming Home: The Croatian War Experience'.
36. L.C. Feldman, I. Prica and R. Senjkovic (eds), Fear, Death and Resistance, An Ethnography of War: Croatia 1991-1992 (Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, Matrix Croatia, X-Press) Zagreb, 1992; Olujic, 'Coming Home: The Croatian War Experience'.
37. Martha MacIntyre, 'Virtuous Women and Violent Men: Salvadoran Women and the Sexual Politics of Machismo', paper presented at the conference on Gender and Human Rights, Melbourne University, August 1993.
38. Anne-Marie Hilsdon, 'Martyrdom and Militarism in the Philippines', paper presented at the conference on Regimes of Sexuality, Australian National University, July 1993.
39. Herman, Trauma and Recovery, p. 51.
40. Allen Feldman, Formations of Violence (University of Chicago Press) Chicago, 1991.
41. Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge (Pantheon Books) New York, 1972, p. 142.
42. Carolyn Nordstrom, 'Treating the Wounds of War', Cultural Survival Quarterly, Summer 1993, pp. 28-30.
43. Elaine Scarry, The Body In Pain (Oxford University Press) Oxford, 1985, p. 163.
44. Herman, Trauma and Recovery, p. 28.
45. Herman, Trauma and Recovery, p. 32.
46. Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape (Simon & Schuster) New York, 1975, pp. 14-15.
47. For example, the work of Men Against Sexual Assault in Australia, and The Oakland Men's Project in the United States.
48. Taussig, 'Public Secrets'.
49. Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa, vol. 1 (University of Chicago Press) Chicago, 1991.
50. Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge University Press) Cambridge, 1977.
51. The video documentary Killing Us Softly provides an excellent discussion and examples of these themes in the media.
52. Arjun Appadurai, 'Disjunction and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy', Public Culture, vol. 2, no. 2, Spring 1990, pp. 1-24.
53. Akhail Gupta and James Ferguson, 'Beyond "Culture": Space, Identity, and the Politics of Difference', Cultural Anthropology, vol. 7, no. 1, February 1992, pp. 6-23.
54. C. Carr, 'Battle Scars: Feminism and Nationalism Clash in the Balkans', Voice, July 13, 1993, p. 29.
55. C. Carr, 'Battle Scars: Feminism and nationalism Clash in the Balkans', pp. 25-9.
56. Diane Bell and Topsy Napurrula Nelson, 'Speaking About Rape is Everyone's Business', Women's Studies International Forum, vol. 1, no. 4, 1989, pp. 403-16.
57. Jackie Huggins et al., 'Letters to the Editor', Women's Studies International Forum, vol. 14, no. 5, 1991, pp. 506-7.
58. Jan Pettman, 'Gendered Knowledge: Aboriginal Women and the Politics of Feminism', Journal of Australian Studies, no. 35, 1992, p. 127. This article addresses the Bell/Nelson controversy as well as commenting on the politics of representation in general.
59. For a discussion of the many issues surrounding the Bell/Nelson article controversy, see Jan Larbalestier, 'The Politics of Representation: Australian Aboriginal Women and Feminism', Anthropological Forum, vol. 6, no. 2, 1990; and reply by Bell in same issue. See also Pettman, 'Gendered Knowledge', pp. 120-31.
60. For a discussion of the many issues surrounding the Bell/Nelson article controversy, see Jan Larbalestier, 'The Politics of Representation: Australian Aboriginal Women and Feminism', Anthropological Forum, vol. 6, no. 2, 1990; and reply by Bell in same issue. See also Pettman, 'Gendered Knowledge', pp. 120-31.
61. Larbalestier, 'The Politics of Representation'.
62. Pettman, 'Gendered Knowledge', p. 128.
63. Kalpana Ram, 'Too Traditional' Once Again: Some Poststructuralists on the Aspirations of the Immigrant/Third World Female Subject', Australian Feminist Studies, no. 17, Autumn 1993, pp. 5-28.
64. Personal communication.
65. They may well be more profound than western versions of secular humanism rooted in legal systems whose concepts of equality may well be restricted.
66. Gupta and Ferguson, 'Beyond "Culture"', pp. 6-23. In the same quotation, the authors note that academia is implicated in this process: The inherently fragmented space assumed in the definition of anthropology as the study of cultures (in the plural) may have been one of the reasons behind the long-standing failure to write anthropology's history as the biography of imperialism.