࢚࣭ࣜ࢝ࣂࢵࣇ࢙ࢵࣜ㊃᪨ㄝ᫂㊃᪨ㄝ᫂
Introduction䜶䝸䜹䞉䝞䝑䝣䜵䝑䝸䠄䝆䜵䞁䝎䞊◊✲ᡤ䞉≉ูᣍ⪸ᩍᤵ䠋䝬䞁䝏䜵䝇䝍䞊኱Ꮫ෸ᩍᤵ䠅

Erica Baffelli(Ochanomizu University / The University of Manchester)
A couple of years ago, Atreyee and I were working at the same university, Manchester, and we
started a conversation over coffee. Atreyee was teaching a new course on Women Warriors inContemporary Religious Conflict, and she asked me to give a guest lecture. From that conversation
we started talking about a research network to look at religion, woman, and violence from acomparative perspective.
In particular, we are interested in looking at women who participate in radical religious andpolitical movements. Comparatively little academic attention has been paid to these women, despite
the increasing number of recent publications and research projects addressing the issue of religion
and violence. Women’s involvement in terrorism (for example as suicide bombers) is still discussed
as “exceptional” and “spectacular”, as actions that are “out of the ordinary”. We think that theseapproaches essentialize women’s wartime character: as nurturing, vulnerable and non-violent, andtheir reductionism often precludes the possibility of analyzing women’s roles as instigators ofbrutalities.
Scholars from a range of disciplines have begun to challenge these assumptions, and we believethat through sharing methodologies and areas of study we will be able to develop nuanced notionsof female militarism and gender and conflict. Our conversation over that coffee two years ago led toa small workshop organized in the University of Manchester in December last year and a grant
proposal, on which we have been working together and is now under review for the Arts andHumanities Research Council in the UK.
In particular, in our research and projects, we areinterested in looking at three aspects. The one aspect isrole and motivation. What are women’s motivations forjoining violent communities, and what are their ascribedand chosen roles? Why are women from both
economically marginalized and affluent areas joining thismovement? Do women use this role to gain visibility,agency and access to resources? This is one of our6

IGS Project Series 7ዪᛶ䚸᐀ᩍ䚸ᭀຊ䠖ᅜ㝿ⓗどⅬ䛛䜙䛾෌⪃questions. Then, the next aspect is representation. How are the images of women who perpetrated
violence shaped in policy documents, media discourse and other channels of dissemination, andhow does it impact the public opinion? At the same time, how do these women share information
with each other in different contexts? The final aspect is the memory. How are acts of violence
involving women participation re-elaborated and re-narrated in a post conflict context?
Regarding my research, I have been working on new religious movements for many years.
Therefore, I am particularly interested in looking at the role played by women in new religious
movements that turned into violence and how these women narrate their experiences. In particular, I
have been looking at the role played by female members in conceptualizing violence in Aum
6KLQULN\ǀ in particular during the early stage of development of the movement, and not only
violence toward external but also in the form of extreme ascetics practices.
Of particular interest is the role of some high ranked members as role models for other female
and male members as well. Also after the 1995 sarin gas attack members were faced with theviolence committed by the group. I’m particularlyinterested in investigating how violence is re-elaborated
through ex-members’ personal narratives and in particularthrough narratives related to their bodies.
Many academic study and non-academic works have
EHHQ SXEOLVKHG RQ $XP 6KLQULN\ǀ ERWK LQ -DSDQHVH DQGother languages. However, the role of women in the grouphas been overlooked. In the media, women who aremembers of Aum are often portrayed through three main
tropes, as “terrorist beauty”, Asahara’s lovers, orirresponsible mothers.
However, three out of five top ranked disciples werewomen and, especially in the early stage of formation of
the movement, their role cannot be reduced to theabove-mentioned tropes. An interesting case is Ishii
Hisako who is considered Asahara’s first disciple. She isportrayed in members’ account as an example of devotion
to the leader and a model of ascetic training. In particular,
she was seen by members as someone capable ofperforming extreme ascetic practices, such as theunderground Samadhi meditation. She also gave lectures
and wrote on the group’s publications about her spiritualexperiences, contributing to create a common narrative
about “spiritual experiences” in the group.
Some members considered her charismatic and she was7࢚࣭ࣜ࢝ࣂࢵࣇ࢙ࢵࣜ㊃᪨ㄝ᫂

able to perform the initiation ritual; she was also reported to have the ability to make prophecies.
This seems to indicate that her role was more than just being a support to the male leadership.
Furthermore, some recent publications by ex-members and some interviews I am currently
conducting seem to suggest that the conceptualization and justification of violence in the group wasa more complex process than often portrayed and more research is needed to understand whether
female members played a specific role in this process.
The idea of the workshop tonight is to continue our discussion about these issues by also
involving speakers working on violence and gender-related issues thereby broadening up the field
as well.

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