Still Reclaiming Voice – Afghan Women’s Knowledge Production under Repression

Abstract

This second part of the IQAS special issue "Reclaiming Voice – Afghan Women and the Politics of Knowledge Production" continues to foreground Afghan women as producers of knowledge rather than as objects of study. It highlights the persistent and intensified efforts to erase women from public, political, and intellectual life under the Taliban’s rule, while documenting the creative, scholarly, and activist responses that contest these restrictions. Contributions include first-person narratives from women activists and organisational leaders, analyses of documentary film and media representation, and explorations of literary, legal, and artistic forms of knowledge production. Across these texts, a central argument emerges: recognising Afghan women’s agency requires taking seriously their intellectual and political labour, strategies, and resistance, rather than reducing them to victims. By centring Afghan women’s voices in multiple genres, languages, and disciplinary perspectives, this special issue asserts the urgency and indispensability of their knowledge for understanding Afghanistan’s present and imagining its future.