The Kurdish Women’s Movement: History, Theory, Practice

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‘One the foremost writers and participants in the Kurdish women’s movement’ - Harsha Walia

The Kurdish women’s movement is at the heart of one of the most exciting revolutionary experiments in the world today: Rojava. Forged over decades of struggle, most recently in the fight against ISIS, Rojava embodies a radical commitment to ecology, democracy and women’s liberation. But while striking images of Kurdish women in military fatigues proliferate, a true understanding of the women’s movement remains elusive.

Taking apart the superficial and Orientalist frameworks that dominate, Dilar Dirik offers instead an empirically rich account of the women’s movement in Kurdistan. Drawing on original research and ethnographic fieldwork, she surveys the movement’s historical origins, ideological evolution, and political practice over the past forty years. Going beyond abstract ideas, Dirik locates the movement’s culture and ideology in its concrete work for women’s revolution in the here and now.

Taking the reader from the guerrilla camps in the mountains to radical women’s academies and self-organised refugee camps, readers around the world can engage with the revolution in Kurdistan, both theoretically and practically, as a vital touchstone in the wider struggle for a militant anti-fascist, anti-capitalist feminist internationalism.