Women Suicide Bombers: Narratives of Violence

564 Pages·02.86 MB·English

by  V.G. Julie Rajan

This is an in-depth, original analysis of the phenomenon of women as
terrorists. Rajan explores her subject in a truly interdisciplinary manner. She
relies on the most recent sophisticated attempts to think about transnational
feminism and feminist theory, but she also brilliantly brings to bear upon the
subject a complex psychoanalytical framework which explores different
stereotypes of women, such as victims, martyrs, and mother of the nation.
This book will be an extremely important resource.
Drucilla Cornell, Professor of Political Science, Women's Studies, and
Comparative Literature, Rutgers University.
A fascinating study that takes us across four continents, Women Suicide
Bombers offers a refreshing perspective on disparate and controversial
representations of women suicide bombers. It leads the reader through the
labyrinth of the mass media, rebel communiqués and popular culture
narratives, and succeeds in reconstructing these women as active militants
negotiating violence, instead of as pathological victims. A must read that
makes an invaluable contribution to the literature on women in war, global
terrorism, human rights and anti-colonial movements.
Charlotte Bunch, Founding Director of the Center for Women's Global
Leadership and Distinguished Professor in Women's and Gender Studies,
Rutgers University.
Women Suicide Bombers

This book offers an evaluation of female suicide bombers through
postcolonial, Third World, feminist, and human-rights frameworks, drawing
on case studies from conflicts in Palestine, Sri Lanka, and Chechnya, among
others.
Women Suicide Bombers explores why cultural, media, and political
reports from various geographies present different information about, and
portraits of, the same women suicide bombers. The majority of Western
media and sovereign states engaged in wars against groups deploying
bombings tend to focus on women bombers’ abnormal mental conditions;
their physicality – for example, their painted fingernails or their beautiful
eyes; their sexuality; and the various ways in which they have been
victimized by their backward Third World cultures, especially by “Islam.”
In contrast, propaganda produced by rebel groups deploying women
bombers, cultures supporting those campaigns, and governments of those
nations at war with sovereign states and Western nations tend to project
women bombers as mythical heroes, in ways that supersede the martyrdom
operations of male bombers.
Many of the books published on this phenomenon have revealed
interesting ways to read women bombers’ subjectivities, but do not explore
the phenomenon of women bombers both inside and outside of their militant
activities, or against the patriarchal, Orientalist, and Western feminist
cultural and theoretical frameworks that label female bombers primarily as
victims of backward cultures. In contrast, this book offers a corrective lens
to the existing discourse, and encourages a more balanced evaluation of
women bombers in contemporary conflict.
This book will be of interest to students of terrorism, gender studies, and
security studies in general.
V.G. Julie Rajan is Visiting Assistant Professor at Rutgers University in
Women's and Gender Studies, and has a PhD in Comparative Literature.
Series: Critical Terrorism Studies
Series Editors: Richard Jackson, Marie Breen Smyth and
Jeroen Gunning
University of Wales, Aberystwyth, UK
This book series will publish rigorous and innovative studies on all aspects
of terrorism, counter-terrorism and state terror. It seeks to advance a new
generation of thinking on traditional subjects, and investigate topics
frequently overlooked in orthodox accounts of terrorism. Books in this series
will typically adopt approaches informed by critical-normative theory, post-
positivist methodologies and non-Western perspectives, as well as rigorous
and reflective orthodox terrorism studies.
Terrorism and the Politics of Response
London in a time of terror
Edited by Angharad Closs Stephens and Nick Vaughan-Williams
Critical Terrorism Studies
Framing a new research agenda
Edited by Richard Jackson, Marie Breen Smyth and Jeroen Gunning
The De-Radicalization of Jihadists
Transforming armed Islamist movements
Omar Ashour
State Terrorism and Neoliberalism
The North in the South
Ruth Blakeley
Contemporary State Terrorism
Theory and practice
Edited by Richard Jackson, Eamon Murphy and Scott Poynting
State Violence and Genocide in Latin America
The Cold War years
Edited by Marcia Esparza, Henry R. Huttenbach and Daniel Feierstein
Discourses and Practices of Terrorism
Interrogating terror
Edited by Bob Brecher, Mark Devenney and Aaron Winter
An Intellectual History of Terror
War, violence and the state
Mikkel Thorup
Women Suicide Bombers
Narratives of violence
V.G. Julie Rajan
Women Suicide Bombers
Narratives of violence

V.G. Julie Rajan
First published 2011
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2011 V.G. Julie Rajan
The right of V.G. Julie Rajan to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-0-415-55225-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-82183-1 (ebk)
Typeset in Baskerville
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
For the millions impacted by war every day…