Who Gets to Know and Be Known? Feminist Reflections on Knowledge Production from the Margins of Afghanistan

Abstract

The plight of Uzbek women in Afghanistan represents a persistent human rights concern that has been only narrowly addressed or ignored altogether, reflecting a broader pattern of “subjugated knowledge”. Amid the repetitive recounting of crimes and conflict-related violence, their experiences remain in the shadows and absent from mainstream knowledge production. The historical marginalisation of women’s voices places Uzbek women in a position of intersectional disadvantage, shaped by gender, linguistic marginalisation and geographic distance as well as ethnic identity. Recognition of their suffering within human rights discourses and reporting is a starting point to challenge the gendered power dynamics that determine who is included in human rights narratives and, ultimately, who benefits from related global policies. This research highlights both past and present human rights issues to illustrate how historical and ongoing oppression compounds vulnerabilities affecting Uzbek women. It examines how their voices, too often excluded, can be integrated into human rights knowledge production. Emerging from the convergence of lived experience, professional disillusionment, and scholarly critique, this contribution engages a pressing question: whose knowledge counts in the production of human rights narratives about Afghanistan?