Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Master of Cultural Studies, Allameh Tabatabai University

2 Associate Professor, Department of Women Studies, allameh tabataba'i University

3 Professor in Sociology & Cultural Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Allameh Tabataba'i University

Abstract

Over three decades after the war's resolution, ordinary women compelled to leave their homeland and subsequently reside in distant cities remain largely absent from narratives, research, and historiography. The most prominent texts on women's war experiences convey the narrative of women who were "decisive and influential," and who were able to make their voices heard due to their proximity to centers of power. Humanities research has focused exclusively on these published texts in the form of women's memoirs, avoiding direct reference to the enormous number of women who survived and lived through the war. Due to this gap in the discourse of war, this study attempted to address the lived experiences of 32 of these women directly by referring to those who live in Mashhad's Shahid Beheshti Town. In addition to analyzing the gender existence of the participants, structural concerns such as class, economic status, ethnicity, and culture are explored with the theoretical approach of "feminist phenomenology" and adherence to "positional subjectivity." The gathered narratives are evaluated in a narrative fashion using a "structuralist narrative" approach, and the "central narrative," which comprises the experiences of all participants, is narrated in three sections: "Facing War," "Survival Struggle," and "Reviving Life and Striving to Improve It."

Keywords

 
Abu Hamad, B. A., Elamassie, S., Oakley, E., Alheiwidi, S., & Baird, S. (2021). "‘No One Should Be Terrified Like I Was!’Exploring Drivers and Impacts of Child Marriage in Protracted Crises Among Palestinian and Syrian Refugees". The European Journal of Development Research, 33(5), 1209-1231.https://doi.org/10.1057/s41287-021-00427-8
Alcoff, L. (1988). "Cultural feminism versus post-structuralism: The identity crisis in feminist theory". Signs: Journal of women in culture and society, 13(3), 405-436. https://doi.org/10.1086/494426
Allen-Collinson, J. (2011). "Feminist phenomenology and the woman in the running body". Sport, ethics and philosophy, 5(3), 297-313. https://doi.org/10.1080/17511321.2011.602584
Arjevanidze, N. (2017). "Experiences of protracted displacement in narratives of Internally Displaced women from Abkhazia". In Materials of the V International Gender Workshop (p. 21).
Behrouzan, O. (2015). "Medicalisation As A Way of Life: The Iran-Iraq War and considerations for psychiatry and anthropology". Medicine Anthropology Theory, 2(3), 40-60. https://doi.org/10.17157/mat.2.3.199
Buck, T., Morton, A., Nan, S. A., & Zurikashvili, F. (2000). "Aftermath: Effects of conflict on internally displaced women in Georgia". Wash DC Cent Dev Inf Eval-US Agency Int Dev, 310.
Burch, R. (1990). "Phenomenology, lived experience: Taking a measure of the topic". Phenomenology+ Pedagogy, 130-160.
Deb, S. S. (2021). "The Liberation War of Bangladesh: Women and the Alternative Narratives of the War". Journal of International Women's Studies, 22(4), 78-86. https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol22/iss4/6/
Elliott, J. (2005). Using narrative in social research: Qualitative and quantitative approaches. Using narrative in social research, 1-232.
Esin, C. (2011). Narrative analysis approaches. Qualitative research methods in psychology: Combining core approaches, 92-117.
Fallah, N. (2013). "Women's Dual Experience of War". Journal of resistance literature, 5(9), 239-264. (In Persian)
Fisher, L. (2000). Feminist phenomenology. In Feminist phenomenology (pp. 1-15). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.
Flick, U. (2006). An introduction to qualitative research. SAGE Publications Ltd; 3rd edition.
Gardam, J. (1997). "Women and the law of armed conflict: why the silence?" International & Comparative Law Quarterly, 46(1), 55-80. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020589300060115
Haeri, M., & Puechguirbal, N. (2010). "From helplessness to agency: examining the plurality of women's experiences in armed conflict". International Review of the Red Cross, 92(877), 103-122. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1816383110000044
Hynes, H. P. (2004). "On the battlefield of women's bodies: An overview of the harm of war to women". In Women's Studies International Forum (Vol. 27, No. 5-6, pp. 431-445). Pergamon. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2004.09.001
Imposed War Immigrant Affairs Foundation. (1987). Statistical results of the Khorasan Province Imposed War Immigrants Census Plan. Management of the statistics plan and program in cooperation with the General Directorate of Statistics and Manpower Studies of the Ministry of Labor. (In Persian)
Jamshidiha, G., & Hamidi, N. (2007). "Female experience of war". Woman in development and politics (women's research), 5(2), 81-108. (In Persian)
Javadi Yeganeh, M., & Sohofi, M. (2013). "A Feminine narrative of war: discourse analysis of DA". Literary criticism, 6(21), 85-110. (In Persian)
Jovchelovitch, S., & Bauer, M. W. (2000). "Narrative interviewing". Qualitative researching with text, image and sound, 57-74.
Koolaee, E. (2014). "The impact of Iraq-Iran war on social roles of Iranian women". Middle East Critique, 23(3), 277-291. https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2014.949937
Kramp, M. K. (2003). "Exploring life and experience through narrative inquiry". In Foundations for research (pp. 119-138). Routledge.
Kruks, S. (2014). "Women’s ‘Lived Experience’: Feminism and Phenomenology from Simone de Beauvoir". The SAGE handbook of feminist theory, 75-92.
Mehdiani, R., Karimipour, Y., & Nirabadi, H. (2017). "The effect of the feeling of relative physical deprivation of the immigrants of the Holy War imposed on the sense of spatial belonging, a case study of Shahid Beheshti town in Mashhad". Comprehensive Quarterly Journal of Sacred Defense, 1(2), 139-161. (In Persian)
Mertus, J. (2000). War's offensive on women: The humanitarian challenge in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan (p. 3132). Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press.
Missaggia, J. (2020). "In defence of feminist phenomenology: lived body, facticity and the problem of essentialism". Revista Ideação, 1(42), 272-286. https://doi.org/10.13102/ideac.v1i42.5483
Mourtada, R., Schlecht, J., & DeJong, J. (2017). "A qualitative study exploring child marriage practices among Syrian conflict-affected populations in Lebanon". Conflict and health, 11(1), 53-65. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13031-017-0131-z
Najafizadeh, M. (2013). "Ethnic conflict and forced displacement: narratives of Azeri IDP and refugee women from the Nagorno-Karabakh War". Journal of International Women's Studies, 14(1), 161-183. https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol14/iss1/10/
Pankhurst, D. (2003). "The'sex war'and other wars: Towards a feminist approach to peace building". Development in practice, 13(2-3), 154-177. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4029589
Porter, E. (2016). "Gendered narratives: Stories and silences in transitional justice". Human Rights Review, 17(1), 35-50. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-015-0389-8
Rehn, E., & Sirleaf, E. J. (2002). Women, war and peace. New York: UNIFEM, 207-219.
Rosenthal, G. (2004). Biographical research. In Qualitative research practice. (pp. 48-64). London: Sage.
Seguin, M., Lewis, R., Razmadze, M., Amirejibi, T., & Roberts, B. (2017). "Coping strategies of internally displaced women in Georgia: A qualitative study". Social Science & Medicine, 194, 34-41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.10.014
Simms, E. M., & Stawarska, B. (2014). "Introduction: Concepts and methods in interdisciplinary feminist phenomenology". Janus Head, 13(1), 6-16. https://doi.org/10.5840/jh20141311
Sim, A., Fazel, M., Bowes, L., & Gardner, F. (2018). "Pathways linking war and displacement to parenting and child adjustment: A qualitative study with Syrian refugees in Lebanon". Social Science & Medicine, 200, 19-26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.01.009
Stone, A. (2004). On the genealogy of women: A defence of anti-essentialism. In Third wave feminism: A critical exploration (pp. 85-96). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Sverdlov, D. (2017). "Rape in war: Prosecuting the Islamic state of Iraq and the levant and Boko Haram for sexual violence against women". Cornell Int'l LJ, 50, 333.
Sylvester, C. (2013). War as experience: Contributions from international relations and feminist analysis. Routledge.
Zakaei, M. (2008). "Narrative, Narratology and Autobiographical Analysis", Journal of the faculty of humanities and social sciences, 1(1 (social research)), 69-98. (In Persian) https://www.sid.ir/paper/397832/en