“Agency and Emancipation: A Decolonial Analysis of the Lived Experience of Hazara Women in Exile in Europe”
Contact: seema.sridhar[@]cefres.cz
Research area 1: Displacement, Dépaysement and Discrepancies
My research focuses on the lived experiences of conflict, international intervention, and displacement of persecuted communities from present-day Afghanistan, by examining the narratives of the Hazara diaspora women living in select cities in Europe. By drawing upon the linkages from the host country to the home country, connecting the dots between women’s lived experiences of change during intervention in Afghanistan, to circumstances leading to displacement and their capacities to cope with resettlement, and their involvement in advocacy and empowerment initiatives, I trace the circle of participation and agency over a continuum of violence.
I attempt to un-silence of marginalized voices by bringing their stories of resistance and resilience to the forefront through my research. By collecting oral histories and conversations about everyday lives in the diaspora, I try to understand how imaginaries formed at the interstices of memories of the past and adaptation to present uncertainty, contribute to forging of identities and collective aspirations. The bridge between the cumulative effect of liberal international intervention, and the spaces, conflicts, opportunities, hierarchies it created or disrupted, and the present resettled redefinitions of themselves and the world around them is edifice of this project.
Methodologically, through narrative analysis and phenomenology, I hope to gain closer insights figurations of the myriad ways in which coloniality, resistance, decoloniality are intertwined in Global North-South relations, within the twin contexts of international intervention and resettlement of displaced conflict-affected populations. Close scrutiny of the performative power of the portrayal of the ‘good refugee’ through the embodiment of secular-liberal values and the empowerment of women, and how agency is shaped by internalising liberal-international power structures, thereby creating spaces for self-emancipation, constitutes a key objective of my research. I seek to delve into the transformation of agency across spatial and temporal dimensions of conflict, through analysis of emplaced and embodied experiences of exiled women. My goal is to contribute reflexive insights into the complexity of these inextricably interlinked processes that can be conceptualised as a larger phenomenon at the intersection of the colonial and decolonial, that may metamorphosise into emancipatory and/or exclusionary reconstitutions based on evolving narrative constructions.
CV
I hold a Master’s in International Politics from New Delhi, India. Prior to embarking on this research, I worked as a journalist with the national newspaper, The Times of India. I have been a visiting scholar at the Tampere Peace Research Institute (TAPRI), in Finland.