Between "Small Arms Fire" and Support: How Rural Afghan Women Simultaneously Resist and Reproduce Patriarchal Power Structures in the Hirat and Balkh Provinces of Afghanistan During Winter and Spring 2019.

Abstract

This thesis will examine how rural Afghan women employ practices of everyday resistance as a means of challenging extremely patriarchal power structures and male domination in Afghanistan, whilst simultaneously supporting and reproducing patriarchal societal structures and values through quiet encroachment of public spaces and the labour market as well as conscious adherence to certain patriarchal norms.

Through qualitative research methods consisting of eleven focus groups with 130 rural women from two provinces in Afghanistan, this research employs a structurationist approach in order to fully account for the interaction and interrelationship between dominant, male-privileging structures of power and rural women’s agency; the latter often being unrecognized as such. Significantly, these women, through the intentions behind their practices of everyday resistance and encroachment upon public spaces demonstrate that they do not wish to eradicate patriarchy, but rather to transform it into a more benign structure of power which conforms to the women’s interpretation of Islam, and which accommodates them as individuals with agency and ability, enabling them to take advantage of independent mobility, provide for their families, and send their children (sons and daughters) to school.

Ultimately, this thesis will argue that what rural women aspire to is not a form of empowerment which is characterized by individual autonomy and political rights, but rather a form of empowerment which is informed by their experience of extreme poverty and the value they place in Islam and family. Thus, these women deliberately engage in everyday resistance to extreme manifestations of patriarchy, but simultaneously consciously adhere to, and subtly advocate for, more benevolent patriarchal social norms.