Keynote: Oral narratives - memory from the margins' of Oral narratives - Subjugated Knowledges
Channel: SOAS University of London
Date: 2020-11-09

Keynote: Oral narratives - memory from the margins' of Oral narratives - Subjugated Knowledges - by Neelam Hussein

This session is based on three stories from the field to show how the fluidity of the spoken word has the potential to subvert the rock hard fixity of patriarchal laws, tradition and culture and change narrative trajectories and open up spaces for change.

The three stories have been taken from papers written by Huma Fouladi: ‘Forced Marriage and Jirga Justice in Tribal Balochistan’; Afiya Shehr Bano Zia: ‘Subverting Their Sex: Women’s Resistance to Sexual Violence and Nazish Brohi: ‘The Anatomy of a Rumour’ published in Disputed Legacies -The Pakistan Papers, ed. Neelam Hussain (a Simorgh-Zubaan publication 2019). In all three cases, women as individuals and as collectivities appropriate established norms, traditions and language-use to overturn and challenge oppressive discourses and systems. The case studies comprise: ‘Saima’s Story’ (Huma Fouladi,); Reclaiming her story – the case of Afiya Khoso and subversion of the male gaze (Afiya Shehr Bano Zia) and - the multiple uses of rumour and laying claim to public spaces (Nazish Brohi).

Find out more at: www.soas.ac.uk/fest-ideas/