Thinking Intersectionally: Taking the Sociology Lecture Outside the Classroom by Rumana Hashem. A presentation at the BSA Teaching Group Regional event on Friday, 29 May 2015.

1. Thinking
Intersectionally
Taking the Sociology Lecture Outside the Classroom
Rumana Hashem, BSA-Teaching Group Regional Conference
2015, UEL

2. The research on gender and armed
conflict
 Gendered aspects of an ethnically- constructed armed conflict in
southeast Bangladesh - explores gender relations between men and
women within nationalist projects
 How different groups of women and men experience, participate in
and respond to ethnically-constructed armed conflict in particular
historical and socio-political situation.
 In which ways and to what extent their experiences in the conflict
have been gendered?
 Moves beyond a structural assessment of conflict and avoids a gender
versus culture analysis;
 Aim is to develop a more nuanced understanding of the lived
experiences of different groups of women and men in the Chittagong
Hill Tracts (CHT).

3. The Case of the Chittagong Hill
Tracts and Intersectionality
 Intersectionality as an analytical
approach: Brah and Phoenix (2004) -
Intersectionality is a concept to signify
the complex, irreducible, diverse and
variable effects that follow when
multiple ‘axes of differentiation’ – such
as the economic, political, cultural,
psychic, subjective and experiential –
intersect in historically specific contexts.
 ‘the question of ‘how’ is as important as
which’ and ‘who’ (Brah, 1996)
 Belongingness is understood in relation
to politics of belonging as well as sense
of belonging, negotiation for boundary
and identities, and contestations of
those boundaries (Yuval-Davis, 2011) ,
based on ones ethnicity, gender, culture,
sexuality, social class, religion and
nationality.

4. Gang rape against Jumma Women:
meanings of sexual violence
 “Two days after, in the morning when the villagers found us in the forest,
they became furious. Mahiani did not say a word though [....] people from
communities [13 collectivities] took to the streets of Kailashpur to protest
against the gang rape by BDR men. [...] ‘Our men’ went mad, they
wouldn’t go home until the bichar [social justice]was done. Some of them
ran to evict people from the Bengali shops and houses in the town. But
no, ‘we’ couldn’t win. Nothing happened to ‘them’ [the Bengalese].
Nobody was punished. Instead, it was ‘us’ [Jummos], ‘our people’, who
suffered. ‘Our men’ were killed and humiliated. Instead of prevention of
rape, the demo brought further violence in the village. ‘They’ [the
Bengalese] rather sent the military to fire on villagers. To shut down the
outcry and the protest, soldiers opened fire in the air. Several men were
shot dead and 12 villages burnt into ashes. At least a thousand villagers
including women, men and children were injured in the militarised
violence in Kailashpur. Following the violence in the village Mahiani has
disappeared from the village, forever.” – A survivor of sexual abuse

5. Sexual violence and abuse of
women as ‘ethnicised’
 “No, no, don’t see those acts of violence as pervasive. Men are the main
targets of military violence here. Sexual violence is committed by the BDR
[para-military force] and Bengali mastans [the stunt and masculine men].
The military does favour them. Ask these soldiers, if they would do such
an act against a Bengali woman. Have you heard any incident of sexual
violence against the Bengali women at all?[...] Listen, these men have
wives, too, and they [those women] protect ‘their men’ pretty well. Their
wives know about all crimes of ‘their men’, very well, but they would not
take a stance against this violence. They want to protect their stuntbaj
[exploitative and low morality men] husbands. If you ask Bengali women
why they support such crimes, they would tell you that we [the Jumma
women] are bashya [whores/prostitutes]. Did you not notice how these
women were looking at you as we walked? They call us names like oi
bashya mayara okhon koi jai [where are the whores off to now?] as we
travel in the evening. They believe that we are going to get ‘their men’s’
head. This is in their psych e, you understand?” – Suprya Chakma (18)

6. Response to gang-rape and
militarised violence
 Well, errr...emmm...I do feel for them.
But you know what? These women are
mostly ‘careless’. For me they are ‘too
daring’. They know that military is
watching them but they wouldn’t take a
little ‘care’. They like hanging about here
and there, no matter how dangerous it is
to hang out like this. Also you saw how
they dress up? This is provocative, no? -
Fatima (40)

7. Conclusion
 Ethnicised gendered violence: How different groups of women experienced the
violence differently in the same conflict zone. People’s experiences depend on their
age, class, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, and nationality.
 Class is being symbolically constructed, was not just about economic class – the
class classification needs to be understood in relation to ethnicity and cultural
supremacy – Jumma women deserve humiliation, domination and
subjugation because of their ethnicity and cultural belonging and/or
‘ethnic’ identity
 Intersectionality - Contested and multiple-belongings: all form Jummos and
Bengali women and men’s actions and lived experiences. Response of Bengali
women (privileged) and Jumma women (those on the margins) are influenced by
their longing for belonging .
 Narratives of sexualised and gendered violence are contested, contextual and
situated – as identities and their sense of belonging are contested and situated

8. References
 Anthias, F. and Yuval-Davis, N. 1992. Connecting race and
gender. In Racialized Boundaries: Race, nation, gender, colour
and class and the anti-racist struggle, ed. F. Anthias and N. Yuval-
Davis in association with H. Cain, 96-131. London: Routledge.
 Andrews, M., Squire, C. and Tamboukou, M., Doing Narrative
Research (SAGE, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi, Singapore, 2012)
 Anthias, F. (2001). The material and the symbolic in theorizing
social stratification: issues of gender, ethnicity and class. British
Journal of Sociology, 52, No. 3:337-390.
 Brah, A. and Phoenix, A. (2004). Ain’t I a Woman? Revisiting
Intersectionality. The Journal of International Women’s Studies,
5, No. 3:75–86).
 Yuval-Davis, N. 2006. Intersectionality and Feminist Politics.
European Journal of Women's Studies 13, No. 3: 193-209