At the Limits of Justice: Women of Colour on Terror

632 Pages·3.81 MB·English

by  Suvendrini Perera, Sherene Razack

AT THE LIMITS OF JUSTICE
Women of Colour on Terror
Edited by Suvendrini Perera and Sherene H. Razack
The fear and violence that followed the events of September 11, 2001,
touched lives all around the world, even in places that few would im-
mediately associate with the global War on Terror. In At the Limits of
Justice, thirty contributors from six countries explore the proximity of
terror in their own lives and in places ranging from Canada and the
United States to Jamaica, Palestine/Israel, Australia, Guyana, Chile,
Pakistan, and across the African continent.
In this collection, female scholars of colour – including leading the-
orists on issues of indigeneity, race, and feminism – examine the po-
litical, social, and personal repercussions of the war on terror through
contributions that range from testimony and poetry to scholarly analy-
sis. Inspired by both the personal and the global impact of this violence
within the War on Terror, they expose the way in which the war on ter-
ror is presented as a distant and foreign issue at the same time that it is
deeply present in the lives of women and others all around the world.
An impassioned but rigorous examination of issues of race and gen-
der in contemporary politics, At the Limits of Justice is also a call to create
moral communities that will find terror and violence unacceptable.
suvendrini perera is a professor in the Department of Communica-
tion and Cultural Studies at Curtin University.
sherene h. razack is a professor in the Department of Social Justice
Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University
of Toronto.
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At the Limits of Justice
Women of Colour on Terror
EDITED BY SUVENDRINI PERERA
AND SHERENE H. RAZACK
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
© University of Toronto Press 2014
Toronto Buffalo London
www.utppublishing.com
Printed in the U.S.A.
ISBN 978-1-4426-4825-8 (cloth)
ISBN 978-1-4426-2600-3 (paper)

Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with vegetable-
based inks.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
At the limits of justice : women of colour on terror / edited by
Suvendrini Perera and Sherene H. Razack.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4426-4825-8 (bound). – ISBN 978-1-4426-2600-3 (pbk.)
1. Terrorism – Social aspects. 2. Violence – Social aspects. I. Perera, Suven-
drini, editor II. Razack, Sherene, editor
HV6431.A8 2014 303.6'25 C2014-902892-X
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Federation
for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly
Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the fi nancial assistance to its
publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts
Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the fi nancial support of the Govern-
ment of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for its publishing activities.
Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction. At the Limits of Justice: Women of Colour Theorize
Terror 3
suvendrini perera and sherene h. razack
Section One: Mundane Terror / (Un)Livable Lives
1 Introduction to Section One 19
laura kwak
2 Violence and Terror in a Colonized Country: Canada’s Indian
Residential School System 23
robina thomas
3 Terrorism and the Birthing Body in Jerusalem 38
nadera shalhoub-kevorkian
4 The Manufacture of Torture as Public Truth: The Case of Omar
Khadr 57
sherene h. razack
5 Surveillance Effects: South Asian, Arab, and Afghan American
Youth in the War on Terror 86
sunaina maira
vi Contents
6 The Biopolitics of Christian Persecution 107
andrea smith
Section Two: Violence in a Far Country: Other Women’s Lives
7 Introduction to Section Two 143
roshan jahangeer and shaira vadasaria
8 “Collateral Violence”: Women’s Rights and National Security in
Pakistan’s War on Terror 148
amina jamal
9 Outsourcing Patriarchy: Feminist Encounters, Transnational
Mediations, and the Crime of “Honour Killings” 164
inderpal grewal
10 Diasporas of Empire: Arab Americans and the Reverberations
of War 191
nadine naber
11 Sovereignty, War on Terror, and Violence against Women 215
meyda yeg˘enog˘lu
Section Three: Terror and the Limits of Remembering
12 Introduction to Section Three 233
kendra-ann pitt
13 “Weeping Is Singing”: After the War, a Transnational
Lament 237
merlinda bobis
14 Gone but Not Forgotten: Memorial Murals, Vigils, and the Politics
of Popular Commemoration in Jamaica 263
honor ford-smith
15 “Lest We Forget”: Terror and the Politics of Commemoration in
Guyana 289
d. alissa trotz
Contents vii
16 “Tortured Bodies”: The Biopolitics of Torture and Truth in
Chile 309
teresa macias
Section Four: Thinking Humanitarianism / Thinking Terror
17 Introduction to Section Four 331
gulzar r. charania
18 From the Northern Territory Emergency Response to Stronger
Futures: Where Is the Evidence That Australian Aboriginal Women
Are Leading Self-Determining Lives? 335
nicole watson
19 Power in/through Speaking of Terror: The Geopolitics and Anti-
Politics of Discourses on Violence in Other Places 356
sedef arat-koç
20 Africa, 9/11, and the Temporality and Spatiality of Race
and Terror 380
malinda s. smith
21 Humanitarianism as Planetary Politics 406
miriam ticktin
Section Five: Terror Circuits
22 Introduction to Section Five 423
hena tyyebi
23 Visual Colonial Economies and Slave Death in Modernity: Bin
Laden’s Terror? 426
anna m. agathangelou
24 Viewing Violence in a Far Country: Abu Ghraib and Terror’s New
Performativities 455
suvendrini perera
25 Fighting Terror: Race, Sex, and the Monstrosity of Islam 472
sunera thobani
viii Contents
Section Six: Theorizing (at) the Limits of Justice
26 Introduction to Section Six 499
nashwa salem
27 In Terror, in Love, out of Time 503
asma abbas
28 Radical Praxis or Knowing (at) the Limits of Justice 526
denise ferreira da silva
29 Unsewing My Lips, Breathing My Voice: The Spoken and
Unspoken Truth of Transnational Violence 538
omeima sukkarieh
30 Mori Cards: The Body Bags Installation 548
omeima sukkarieh
Bibliography 553
List of Contributors 611
List of Illustrations
14.1 Vigil in protest of the murder of Kavorn Shew at Mountain
View, Kingston, 2012 264
14.2 Memorial for Jason Smith by Vermon Grant, Spanish Town,
Jamaica, 2009 272
14.3 The wall outside the family compound after police
painted out the mural by Vermon Grant in memory of
Jason Williams 273
14.4 Memorial for fallen members of the Rich and Famous,
by Anthony Brown, Hannah Town, 2009 275
14.5 Zico, by Anthony Brown, in Hannah Town, Kingston 276
14.6 Dada on the Upsetters corner, by Anthony Brown, 2009 278
14.7 Commemorative mural of Kimarley, by Tony Brown 280
14.8 Mural for Mollo, by Tony Brown 281
15.1 Approaching Hurudaia, Demerara River 291
15.2 Sun Chapman commemorative site, Hurudaia 293
15.3 Sun Chapman memorial wall 294
15.4 International Women’s Day March, Linden, 2002 303
23.1 Before/After Osama Bin Laden 436
23.2 Osama Bin Laden, Cologne 446
30.1 Mori Cards: The Body Bags Installation, Postcard 1 549
30.2 Mori Cards: The Body Bags Installation, Postcard 2 550
30.3 Mori Cards: The Body Bags Installation, Postcard 3 551
30.4 Mori Cards: The Body Bags Installation, Postcard 4 552