Reclaiming Voice – Afghan Women and the Politics of Knowledge Production

Abstract

This special double edition of IQAS on Afghan Women’s Knowledge Production foregrounds the knowledge, creativity and critical voice of Afghan women. It brings together perspectives from both within and beyond academia, spanning geographies and disciplines, centring women not as subjects of study but as authors, critics and theorists in their own right. In this editorial, co-editors Susanne Schmeidl, a scholar with decades of research and field experience in Afghanistan, and Morwari Zafar, an Afghan-American anthropologist and writer, set the thematic and political frame for the volume. They reflect on the urgency of centring Afghan women’s voices amid escalating restrictions and political erasure since the Taliban’s return to power. Drawing on their own scholarly work, they situate the contributions – ranging from academic articles to personal narratives, poetry and art – within broader debates on decolonising knowledge, feminist epistemology and the ethics of representation.