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Durham Research Online
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The spectral wound : sexual violence, public memories, and the Bangladesh War of 1971.

Mookherjee, N. (2015) 'The spectral wound : sexual violence, public memories, and the Bangladesh War of 1971.', Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Abstract

Following the 1971 Bangladesh War, the Bangladesh government publicly designated the thousands of women raped by the Pakistani military and their local collaborators as birangonas, ("brave women”). Nayanika Mookherjee demonstrates that while this celebration of birangonas as heroes keeps them in the public memory, they exist in the public consciousness as what Mookherjee calls a spectral wound. Dominant representations of birangonas as dehumanized victims with disheveled hair, a vacant look, and rejected by their communities create this wound, the effects of which flatten the diversity of their experiences through which birangonas have lived with the violence of wartime rape. In critically examining the pervasiveness of the birangona construction, Mookherjee opens the possibility for a more politico-economic, ethical, and nuanced inquiry into the sexuality of war.

Item Type:Book
Additional Information:Sample chapter deposited: 'Introduction: The "Looking-Glass Border"', pp. 1-30.
Full text:(AM) Accepted Manuscript
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Status:Peer-reviewed
Publisher Web site:https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-spectral-wound
Date accepted:29 July 2014
Date deposited:11 January 2017
Date of first online publication:05 October 2015
Date first made open access:No date available

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