The Kurdish Women's Movement

'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.

Dilar Dirik was born in Antakya and grew up in Offenbach am Main. She is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oxford and holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Cambridge. She has written on the Kurdish struggle for a range of publications including openDemocracy and ROAR Magazine. She tweets @Dlrdrk1.

Figures Abbreviations and acronyms Locations in Kurdish Map Acknowledgements Preface Introduction: The Kurdistan women's revolution – A social history from below PART I: HISTORY 1. Mapping the Kurdistan of women 2. The Kurdistan Revolutionaries 3. Berxwedan jiyan e! – The Diyarbakir prison resistance 4. Vejîn! – The first bullet 5. Edî bes e! – The dirty war 6. Towards women's autonomy 7. International conspiracy and internal crisis 8. The battle for the PKK's soul 9. Enter Democratic Confederalism PART II: THEORY 10. 'Struggling woman': Ideology and identity 11. Building 'democratic modernity' 12. Jineolojî: 'A science of woman and life' PART III: PRACTICE 13. Stateless society 14. Öcalan: Leader, prisoner, comrade 15. Revolutionizing love 16. Mothers 17. Self-defence 18. Martyrs 19. Prisoners 20. Education 21. Media 22. Ecology 23. Mexmûr: From displacement to self-determination 24. Bakur: Women against politicide 25. Basûr: 'Freedom is more than the absence of dictatorship' 26. Rojava: A women's revolution 27. Resistance or feminicide: Women against Daesh 28. Sengal: From feminicide to women's autonomy 29. Kobanê did not fall 30. Life after Daesh: Women's solidarity in Manbij 31. War and peace PART IV: EMPOWERMENT OR REVOLUTION? 32. Two rivers, two freedom agendas? Notes Bibliography Index