Feminism, gender and power in Kurdish Studies: An interview with Prof. Shahrzad Mojab

Abstract

In this interview, Prof. Shahrzad Mojab reflects on her longstanding personal, political, and intellectual engagement with Kurdish women. Twenty years after publishing the ground-breaking edited volume Women of a Non-State Nation: The Kurds (Mazda Publishers, 2001), Mojab assesses the complex relation between Kurdish Studies and feminism and evaluates current discussions regarding gendered power relations in Kurdish scholarship. Gender relations in Kurdish society and in Kurdish Studies can only be understood, she insists, when taking into account how gender intersects with capitalism, class, colonialism, nationalism, and patriarchy. Through her personal trajectory, the interview offers insight into the historical developments that have facilitated Kurdish women to increasingly be included in Kurdish Studies as both researchers and research participants.