In our coverage of Kurdish history and society, it has been our journal’s intention to pay adequate attention to the gender dimension (besides those of class, ethnicity, language, religion and political economy). We are therefore pleased to present this special issue titled Theorising women and war in Kurdistan: A feminist and critical perspective with a focus on the role of women as actors as well as victims in war and conflict. The guest editors, Nazand Begikhani, Wendelmoet Hamelink and Nerina Weiss, are long-time members of the Kurdish Studies Network (KSN) and have each previously published relevant and memorable work themselves, and for this issue they have brought together a set of remarkable papers, each of which offers a new and unusual perspective on cases of gendered violence.