1 00:00:04,170 --> 00:00:10,410 Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our symposium, hegemonic narratives, global, 2 00:00:10,410 --> 00:00:15,000 national and local dynamics of memory politics and post-conflict societies. 3 00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:19,230 Today, we organised with my colleague Johan Amis. 4 00:00:19,230 --> 00:00:26,550 My name is Jesse Barton Rojava, and I'm a postdoctoral research fellow at the Oxford Department of International Development. 5 00:00:26,550 --> 00:00:32,520 My main area of focus is transitional justice memory, and I have a regional expertise in Southeast Europe. 6 00:00:32,520 --> 00:00:38,670 My colleague Yohanna is a post-doctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute and the Czech Academy of Sciences, 7 00:00:38,670 --> 00:00:47,790 and she mainly focuses on the dynamic relationship between collective identity and cultural collective memory, especially in Central Europe. 8 00:00:47,790 --> 00:00:52,380 I really warmly want to welcome you all to our session, which is going to be very long. 9 00:00:52,380 --> 00:00:57,420 We have two sessions today, morning and afternoon with very distinguished speakers, 10 00:00:57,420 --> 00:01:01,470 and we're very, very pleased that a lot of them have joined us from all over the world. 11 00:01:01,470 --> 00:01:07,680 I suppose that is the upside of the current crisis that we are actually able to invite speakers from Australia, 12 00:01:07,680 --> 00:01:14,340 the United States without any additional cost, apart from sometimes timing issues. 13 00:01:14,340 --> 00:01:18,810 Our aim today is to study the sociopolitical aspects of memory, 14 00:01:18,810 --> 00:01:27,120 especially how Barry's dominant or so-called hegemonic narratives are used and misused at the international, national and local levels. 15 00:01:27,120 --> 00:01:32,430 I think we've all seen that interpretations of memory have resurfaced again as an important resource, 16 00:01:32,430 --> 00:01:40,110 both for political actors as well as a mobilisation resource for that is being used in the public sphere. 17 00:01:40,110 --> 00:01:47,100 Today, we will discuss various cases from Northern Ireland Central Zero all the way to Brazil, as well as Afghanistan, 18 00:01:47,100 --> 00:01:56,310 which we will hear about in a little bit more and in the next session, just a few housekeeping emails for today. 19 00:01:56,310 --> 00:02:04,920 And just to help you with the organisation, all of the attendees and we I can now see that there are 52 people online already. 20 00:02:04,920 --> 00:02:09,570 Thank you very much for being on time. So all of you are muted, 21 00:02:09,570 --> 00:02:14,040 which means your mikes are off and your videos Arnold seen or you can see currently 22 00:02:14,040 --> 00:02:19,920 are them are the speakers are the panellists for during the panel sessions, 23 00:02:19,920 --> 00:02:22,920 you're not able to necessarily chat with the panellists. 24 00:02:22,920 --> 00:02:31,830 However, I would encourage you to ask questions in the Q&A through the Q&A function, which you have at the bottom, at the bottom of your screen. 25 00:02:31,830 --> 00:02:35,790 From experience again, I'd encourage you to ask the questions as soon as you can, 26 00:02:35,790 --> 00:02:39,510 because we do tend to have tend to get all the questions at the end of the panel, 27 00:02:39,510 --> 00:02:43,530 and then there's not enough time to actually answer the questions because obviously we need to read them, 28 00:02:43,530 --> 00:02:48,780 engage with them and then pose the panellists the questions. 29 00:02:48,780 --> 00:02:56,940 I would also encourage you during the coffee break and the lunch break when you actually will have the chance to chat you down, 30 00:02:56,940 --> 00:03:02,700 to chat to the panellists, to ask additional questions or if you have any clarifications. 31 00:03:02,700 --> 00:03:10,050 You can also use the chat function. But we will explain this as we go through the day and through the morning. 32 00:03:10,050 --> 00:03:14,130 I also want to encourage you to follow us on social media if you're using Twitter. 33 00:03:14,130 --> 00:03:20,730 We have a Twitter hashtag for today, which is pagina, which is heat and air. 34 00:03:20,730 --> 00:03:28,380 We will post it in the comments so that you can see it. And also, you can follow me on Yohanna, on Yacine or Yohanna. 35 00:03:28,380 --> 00:03:33,390 This again, we will post it as well as our department and our sponsors. 36 00:03:33,390 --> 00:03:40,680 And let me say here that I really want to thank our sponsors with money. In the end, we didn't really need, but we are. 37 00:03:40,680 --> 00:03:46,860 We're still very grateful that they were willing to sponsor us if this event was going to go offline. 38 00:03:46,860 --> 00:03:50,910 And that is the the founder of my Fellowship Economic and Social Research Council. 39 00:03:50,910 --> 00:03:55,080 We want to thank the Max Planck Institute, the Czech Academy of Scientists. 40 00:03:55,080 --> 00:04:03,210 Obviously, I want to thank very much my department at Oxford Department for International Development that has helped with this organisation, 41 00:04:03,210 --> 00:04:12,810 and we want to also thank South East European studies. Oxford, who is who's always been very supportive of all of our, of all of our work. 42 00:04:12,810 --> 00:04:19,590 Before we go into our first keynote and before you, Hannah actually tells you a little bit more about how we designed this programme. 43 00:04:19,590 --> 00:04:24,990 I'd like to give the floor to the head of Department of International Development in Oxford, 44 00:04:24,990 --> 00:04:28,800 Diego Sanchez, Uncle Jack, who's a very distinguished researcher. 45 00:04:28,800 --> 00:04:34,590 It mainly works in the Global South and Latin America on issues such as inequality or industrial policies, 46 00:04:34,590 --> 00:04:41,430 and I ask him just to say a few words of Welcome to all of you joining us from around the world. 47 00:04:41,430 --> 00:04:46,430 Diego to the floor as the floor is yours on the virtual floor is yours. Thank you, Jesse. 48 00:04:46,430 --> 00:04:51,030 Oh, sorry. Wait, wait, wait a minute. 49 00:04:51,030 --> 00:04:55,860 OK, I'm here. Thank you very much. Yes, and thank you also for the distinguished part. 50 00:04:55,860 --> 00:05:00,120 I have to say that I don't feel distinguished attorney and even less in this time anarchist. 51 00:05:00,120 --> 00:05:13,290 But I I very much appreciated. I am very happy to be here and to to actually have the invitation to say the first few words, 52 00:05:13,290 --> 00:05:18,030 I have to say that I'm very sorry that I cannot say the words actually with you, 53 00:05:18,030 --> 00:05:24,420 all of you in Mansfield Road, because that would be much nicer and discussed. 54 00:05:24,420 --> 00:05:35,880 But it's actually a great opportunity anyway to welcome you all and to celebrate all the work that Jesse and Joanna have done. 55 00:05:35,880 --> 00:05:43,500 So as some of you will know, our department is very much concerned with the politics of development and 56 00:05:43,500 --> 00:05:47,700 thinking about the politics of development from a multidisciplinary perspective. 57 00:05:47,700 --> 00:05:53,820 So if you think about some of the topics we do that goes from how people experience development to how 58 00:05:53,820 --> 00:06:01,680 global and local actors interact to have problems at frame and reframe based on political calculations, 59 00:06:01,680 --> 00:06:06,000 or how we can build more inclusive and stable institutions. 60 00:06:06,000 --> 00:06:16,260 And I think and Jesse and Diana will correct me by that, partly what we will be actually discussing in many ways today, 61 00:06:16,260 --> 00:06:29,790 focussing very much on the role of memory in the way framing takes place and frame means are used, but also used in conflict societies. 62 00:06:29,790 --> 00:06:36,990 Of course, the issue of conflict and post-conflict itself has been at the centre of the department. 63 00:06:36,990 --> 00:06:45,960 I entered when I came in 2008. France is a theworld had to send their own conflict and horizontal inequalities. 64 00:06:45,960 --> 00:06:57,270 But also, George has done a lot of work in in terms of conflict and conflict, in a very different perspective than France is revealing our diversity. 65 00:06:57,270 --> 00:07:03,360 And he has also supervised all kinds of doctoral students doing some of this work. 66 00:07:03,360 --> 00:07:06,810 John Gledhill, that's now post-conflict work. 67 00:07:06,810 --> 00:07:16,500 And of course, this year we were fortunate to have Jesse for the whole year, bringing many of these issues to year as well. 68 00:07:16,500 --> 00:07:27,450 And the conference doesn't just build on our unique tradition. 69 00:07:27,450 --> 00:07:34,890 Spoke for itself, including, for example, in the other side of my life in the Latin American frontier. 70 00:07:34,890 --> 00:07:43,770 And yesterday, Sosa from abroad there, say there's a second reason that I was glad just to gave me the opportunity to actually have the floor at the 71 00:07:43,770 --> 00:07:53,400 beginning and is that these countries very much chose the role that postdoctoral fellows playing academia in general, 72 00:07:53,400 --> 00:08:02,100 but clearly in our department. I think one of the reasons I was very happy to become part of the parliament is very much to assist 73 00:08:02,100 --> 00:08:09,810 and support and even mentor the number of early career academics that we receive every year. 74 00:08:09,810 --> 00:08:14,460 And that leads to all kinds of benefits from us, 75 00:08:14,460 --> 00:08:21,940 from the research to the dynamism to the commitment to communicate better and more original ways again. 76 00:08:21,940 --> 00:08:32,010 This conference is a good example to the promotion of the late I know very well, and I participated in all kinds of discussions at the moment of how, 77 00:08:32,010 --> 00:08:40,170 and these times are uncertain for everyone, but obviously, particularly for early career academics. 78 00:08:40,170 --> 00:08:44,010 I don't want to start the conference with a pessimistic bent, 79 00:08:44,010 --> 00:08:49,500 but obviously from high prices to a difficult labour market to growing demands from 80 00:08:49,500 --> 00:08:54,960 our time like this is largely higher there than it was just three months ago. 81 00:08:54,960 --> 00:09:02,520 But I am one of the people convince an academic and a set of determined that the academic world will 82 00:09:02,520 --> 00:09:11,880 only be successful if we are actually able to create a spaces for early career academics to succeed, 83 00:09:11,880 --> 00:09:24,700 to grow, to create these kinds of conversations, and for all of us to benefit from their ideas that have been dynamism on their teaching experience. 84 00:09:24,700 --> 00:09:28,770 So I was glad to see the conference. 85 00:09:28,770 --> 00:09:33,900 I was glad that just gave me the opportunity to welcome you all, 86 00:09:33,900 --> 00:09:40,740 and I promise at least some of you that we will be able to receive you at some other moment, 87 00:09:40,740 --> 00:09:45,150 hopefully soon in Mansfield Road as well, where we will give you both. 88 00:09:45,150 --> 00:09:52,300 Not very good sandwiches, which is UK style, but also maybe it much better being there, which is also expressed. 89 00:09:52,300 --> 00:09:58,230 So thank you very much and good luck with the whole conference. 90 00:09:58,230 --> 00:10:04,310 Thank you so much, Diego. That was really nice of you and thank you for bringing in the current crisis a little bit in the picture. 91 00:10:04,310 --> 00:10:07,650 I know we brushed over it a little bit. Thank you. 92 00:10:07,650 --> 00:10:09,960 And so now I'd like to finally hand over to Yohanna, 93 00:10:09,960 --> 00:10:18,360 my colleague Johan Avis and a very good friend of mine who is currently in London but otherwise based on Max Planck and the Czech Academy of Sciences. 94 00:10:18,360 --> 00:10:23,340 She will not only say a few words about the programme today and how we designed this conference. 95 00:10:23,340 --> 00:10:28,170 She will also introduce our first keynote speaker that I know everyone's already waiting for. 96 00:10:28,170 --> 00:10:32,410 Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Jesse. 97 00:10:32,410 --> 00:10:37,960 Good morning and warm, welcome to our all, our distinguished panellists and to the audience. 98 00:10:37,960 --> 00:10:46,690 We are very excited that this event, despite the current situation, is taking place today as originally originally scheduled. 99 00:10:46,690 --> 00:10:51,400 Even though online and not in Oxford mentioned, 100 00:10:51,400 --> 00:10:58,420 it was in early autumn when Jesse and I got together to organise and discuss the possibility to 101 00:10:58,420 --> 00:11:06,880 organise an event to bring together different scholars whose work inspires us in one way or another. 102 00:11:06,880 --> 00:11:15,520 And to discuss the topic we both are very passionate about, namely the politics of memory and the memory of politics. 103 00:11:15,520 --> 00:11:21,820 We wanted to reflect on how the past is being constructed for political purposes, 104 00:11:21,820 --> 00:11:28,600 especially in the context of different geographical locations and on different levels of society. 105 00:11:28,600 --> 00:11:40,270 And by doing so, we really ultimately wanted to further explore the intrinsic and dynamic relationship between memory politics and power. 106 00:11:40,270 --> 00:11:48,100 So first, meet in each panel, we wanted to have several countries and at least two different continents represented. 107 00:11:48,100 --> 00:11:53,320 The reason being that while we appreciate the uniqueness of each case study, 108 00:11:53,320 --> 00:12:01,450 we also very strongly believe that there are certain common dynamics that there are certain shared features, 109 00:12:01,450 --> 00:12:05,270 which will become more obvious through juxtaposition. 110 00:12:05,270 --> 00:12:14,930 Secondly, the symposium is divided into three panels, each exploring different nexus between memory, 111 00:12:14,930 --> 00:12:22,400 power and politics on different levels on international, national and local level. 112 00:12:22,400 --> 00:12:31,310 Again, we are very much aware that all these three levels interact simultaneously and that they are mutually reinforcing. 113 00:12:31,310 --> 00:12:40,760 But for organisational and for analytical purposes, we think that this distinction works particularly well on this occasion. 114 00:12:40,760 --> 00:12:46,190 So it's enough about the underlying ideas and logic of the symposium. 115 00:12:46,190 --> 00:12:51,620 And now please let me introduce our first keynote speaker to Jassal. 116 00:12:51,620 --> 00:13:00,530 Fernandes such as that is a professor of political, political economy and sociology at the University of Sydney. 117 00:13:00,530 --> 00:13:10,940 Her work explores social and cultural movements, black popular culture and migrant workers with a focus on the Americas. 118 00:13:10,940 --> 00:13:20,540 In her book Curated Stories, The Uses and Misuses of Storytelling, about which she will tell us herself shortly. 119 00:13:20,540 --> 00:13:25,940 Soochow Brown looks at the uses of storytelling in a range of global movements, 120 00:13:25,940 --> 00:13:32,000 including campaigns by migrant domestic workers and undocumented youth. 121 00:13:32,000 --> 00:13:36,800 The book was published by the Oxford University Press and Sujata. 122 00:13:36,800 --> 00:13:47,330 The Virtual Floor is yours. And Newt. 123 00:13:47,330 --> 00:13:56,630 OK, thank you. Thank you so much to Jesse and Joanna for pulling all of this together, especially given the challenges of the current situation. 124 00:13:56,630 --> 00:14:04,580 Just as one of those examples of one of the challenges my internet went out to this morning and I was told it could be up to 48 hours. 125 00:14:04,580 --> 00:14:09,980 So I have a temporary modem and we're all keeping our fingers crossed, hopefully that it goes off without any hitches. 126 00:14:09,980 --> 00:14:14,810 But you will know in case there's something that that that fits the modem playing up. 127 00:14:14,810 --> 00:14:22,940 But thank you very much. Again, I'm very excited to be a part of this conference and thank you also to the Department of International Development. 128 00:14:22,940 --> 00:14:50,910 All right, so I'm going to share my presentation. 129 00:14:50,910 --> 00:14:59,160 So Malala Yousafzai grew up in the northwestern SWAT district of Pakistan, about 50 miles from the Afghan border. 130 00:14:59,160 --> 00:15:04,200 She was the daughter of an educator who ran a chain of private schools in the area when 131 00:15:04,200 --> 00:15:10,020 the militant Taliban group took over the SWAT Valley and banned girls education in 2008. 132 00:15:10,020 --> 00:15:17,610 The 11 year old Malala was enlisted to write a blog underpinning for the BBC, recounting her experiences. 133 00:15:17,610 --> 00:15:23,850 She wrote about she spoke about education rights to American officials and to grassroots organisations. 134 00:15:23,850 --> 00:15:31,860 As Malala began to address national and international media, our identity was revealed and she received numerous death threats. 135 00:15:31,860 --> 00:15:40,260 On October nine, 2012, she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman while returning home on a bus after taking an exam. 136 00:15:40,260 --> 00:15:49,550 She survived after numerous rounds of reconstructive surgery and rehabilitation and went on to complete her schooling in Birmingham, England. 137 00:15:49,550 --> 00:15:56,690 In the wake of her shooting, Malala has been the recipient of numerous awards and honours, including the Nobel Peace prise. 138 00:15:56,690 --> 00:16:04,580 She has received honorary citizenships and doctorates, was featured by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, 139 00:16:04,580 --> 00:16:09,140 has met with many heads of state and has been the subject of a documentary. 140 00:16:09,140 --> 00:16:17,360 He named me Malala. She has been organised as the girl who was shot by the Taliban for wanting to go to school 141 00:16:17,360 --> 00:16:21,740 in the geopolitical crosscurrents of American military intervention in the Middle East, 142 00:16:21,740 --> 00:16:29,180 a rising wave of protest from the Arab revolutions and criticism of the surveillance of Muslim populations in Western countries. 143 00:16:29,180 --> 00:16:37,280 Malala's story was one that could provide reassurance and comfort to a Western public that America was doing the right thing. 144 00:16:37,280 --> 00:16:46,970 Media pundits, politicians and advocacy organisations worked to create an image of Malala as a symbol of women's rights under attack by the Taliban. 145 00:16:46,970 --> 00:16:52,880 A situation requiring Western military intervention in constructing this narrative about 146 00:16:52,880 --> 00:16:59,270 Malala talk show hosts and marketing teams glossed over Malala's opposition to the war, 147 00:16:59,270 --> 00:17:07,490 and they ignored her indictments of American intelligence agencies as having fostered the idea of jihad and arming the Taliban. 148 00:17:07,490 --> 00:17:16,820 She is presented as a deserving, empathetic subject, non-confrontational compared to the angry Muslims who dominate Western media coverage. 149 00:17:16,820 --> 00:17:22,400 The refashioning of Malala's story has become possible within an emerging culture of storytelling 150 00:17:22,400 --> 00:17:28,700 that presents carefully curated narratives with predetermined storylines as a tool of philanthropy, 151 00:17:28,700 --> 00:17:35,120 statecraft and advocacy. Contemporary life is saturated with such initiatives, 152 00:17:35,120 --> 00:17:40,160 from the phenomenon of TEDTalks and humans of New York to the plethora of story 153 00:17:40,160 --> 00:17:44,960 coaching agencies and strategists that have emerged to sustain this culture. 154 00:17:44,960 --> 00:17:50,480 It is no coincidence that the rise of this curated storytelling takes place in an era of Facebook, 155 00:17:50,480 --> 00:17:57,410 which a New Yorker article notes is a medium that promotes the quick and cavalier consumption of others. 156 00:17:57,410 --> 00:18:03,560 Just as Malala is depicted as a typical teen in the film, giggling at a picture of Brad Pitt, 157 00:18:03,560 --> 00:18:09,410 the popular stories in the news feeds and timelines of social media and those that are accessible, 158 00:18:09,410 --> 00:18:20,020 history's ambiguities and political struggles are raised in an effort to create warm and relatable portraits of others who are just like us. 159 00:18:20,020 --> 00:18:27,130 Curated storytelling has extended deep into contemporary social life and political culture and institutions. 160 00:18:27,130 --> 00:18:30,550 The Harvard lecturer and political strategist, Marshall Ganz, 161 00:18:30,550 --> 00:18:37,090 was called upon in 2007 to provide storytelling workshops for Barack Obama's election campaign 162 00:18:37,090 --> 00:18:42,850 and his public narrative trainings have since been used widely by advocacy organisations, 163 00:18:42,850 --> 00:18:52,540 nonprofits, NGOs and immigrant rights groups. Tell Your Story has become an inspirational mantra of the self-help industry. 164 00:18:52,540 --> 00:18:58,150 Narrative research centres have emerged to look at the benefits of storytelling in a range of areas, 165 00:18:58,150 --> 00:19:04,000 from treating depression to helping new immigrants build community. 166 00:19:04,000 --> 00:19:12,130 Philanthropy organisations and foundations produce storytelling manuals and also trainings to their grantees in non-profit storytelling. 167 00:19:12,130 --> 00:19:20,440 The Department of Defence sponsors a project known as narrative networks looking at the strategic implications of narrative for defence missions, 168 00:19:20,440 --> 00:19:27,880 and the US State Department has used story workshops as a means of cultural diplomacy in places like Afghanistan. 169 00:19:27,880 --> 00:19:32,050 What is behind this contemporary boom of instrumental storytelling? 170 00:19:32,050 --> 00:19:40,960 What accounts for the wide diffusion of a storytelling model as a set of globally available trainings, toolkits and protocols? 171 00:19:40,960 --> 00:19:47,110 While most of the literature about storytelling has focussed on the multiple gains to be had from telling stories. 172 00:19:47,110 --> 00:19:55,660 My work takes a more critical look at the storytelling boom alongside a broader shift to neoliberal and financialized economies. 173 00:19:55,660 --> 00:20:02,020 Storytelling is being reconfigured on the model of the market to promote entrepreneurial self making 174 00:20:02,020 --> 00:20:07,810 and is leveraged towards strategic and measurable goals driven by philanthropic foundations. 175 00:20:07,810 --> 00:20:13,690 Curated personal stories shift the focus away from structurally defined axes of oppression and 176 00:20:13,690 --> 00:20:19,690 help to diffuse the confrontational politics of social movements and the conditions to stories. 177 00:20:19,690 --> 00:20:24,610 Reproduce dominant relations of power. And when can they be subversive? 178 00:20:24,610 --> 00:20:33,310 What are the stakes and for whom? In the crafting and mobilisation of storytelling, rather than being the magical elixir we imagine, 179 00:20:33,310 --> 00:20:38,380 might curated stories actually inhibit social change? 180 00:20:38,380 --> 00:20:46,030 Most of the scholarly and popular literature on storytelling extols the virtues of a prototypical and universal storytelling model, 181 00:20:46,030 --> 00:20:50,410 but it does not address the circuits of capital within which stories circulate 182 00:20:50,410 --> 00:21:00,190 or the situation of storytelling within broader neoliberal transformations. In my book, Curated Stories, The Uses and misuses of Storytelling. 183 00:21:00,190 --> 00:21:09,370 I use the concept of the political economy of storytelling to discuss the remaking of storytelling in a context of neo liberalism. 184 00:21:09,370 --> 00:21:12,460 The concept refers to two intertwined activities. 185 00:21:12,460 --> 00:21:18,610 The first is the production, circulation and consumption of stories that are mobilised towards an end, 186 00:21:18,610 --> 00:21:26,830 such as the building of political capital of organisations and bolstering electoral goals and the aims of imperial statecraft. 187 00:21:26,830 --> 00:21:34,360 Stories are structured through protocols and workshops to provide soundbites that can easily be delivered in a newspaper interview. 188 00:21:34,360 --> 00:21:42,230 Voter recruitment drive or illegal hearing. This embedded from the social networks and everyday life of the storyteller. 189 00:21:42,230 --> 00:21:48,440 These stories are circulated in legislative and electoral campaigns and online forums. 190 00:21:48,440 --> 00:21:55,940 A political economy of storytelling is concerned with the conditions of the production of stories within neoliberal orders. 191 00:21:55,940 --> 00:22:01,460 The second activity involves the deployment of stories in processes of subject making. 192 00:22:01,460 --> 00:22:04,700 Scholars of literature have shown how, under liberal modernity, 193 00:22:04,700 --> 00:22:12,500 the story form provided the technology by which social outsiders acquired the capacity to become citizens subjects. 194 00:22:12,500 --> 00:22:21,410 However, I draw on a thickly on coin accounts of neoliberal subjectivity to understand how in a neoliberal era, as Nicholas Rose argues, 195 00:22:21,410 --> 00:22:27,260 subjects of role of role as specified in a new way quote as active individuals asked 196 00:22:27,260 --> 00:22:32,840 to enterprise themselves to maximise the quality of life through acts of choice, 197 00:22:32,840 --> 00:22:38,960 the individual is seen as an active agent in the fabrication of their own existence. 198 00:22:38,960 --> 00:22:47,780 Curated storytelling as a means of producing neoliberal subjects guided by principles of upward mobility, entrepreneurship and self-reliance. 199 00:22:47,780 --> 00:22:54,990 Those who participate in the self making also have class aspirations of upward mobility due to their educational opportunities, 200 00:22:54,990 --> 00:22:59,510 niche position in the economy or their access to structures of funding. 201 00:22:59,510 --> 00:23:07,640 Yet, despite the desire for individual personal advancement, the majority of those who tell their stories are not able to improve their conditions. 202 00:23:07,640 --> 00:23:14,240 This is one of the contradictions that could work to unravel the project of neoliberal subject making. 203 00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:21,470 In my talk today, I want to present a case of curated storytelling from a study of the online Afghan women's writing project, 204 00:23:21,470 --> 00:23:32,490 the IWW p, a series of online creative writing workshops conducted by US based mentors with Afghan women in English. 205 00:23:32,490 --> 00:23:38,220 In March 2010, the Dutch government pulling out from the US led war in Afghanistan. 206 00:23:38,220 --> 00:23:47,070 The CIA released a confidential memo calling for targeted manipulation of public opinion using stories by Afghan women. 207 00:23:47,070 --> 00:23:54,870 The subheading of the memo why counting on apathy might not be enough refers to the indifference amongst the public in Germany and France that 208 00:23:54,870 --> 00:24:04,140 allowed these countries to send more troops a strategy that might not be sustainable if there were more Afghan civilian casualties or public debates. 209 00:24:04,140 --> 00:24:10,350 Rather, the memo calls for the circulation of stories by Afghan women to humanise the military 210 00:24:10,350 --> 00:24:15,750 intervention and build support amongst Western European women for the war effort. 211 00:24:15,750 --> 00:24:19,950 The CIA memo points to the uses of storytelling and imperial statecraft, 212 00:24:19,950 --> 00:24:26,520 with geopolitical strategy and intervention pursued not just through military aggression and economic pressure, 213 00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:31,830 but justified by emotional accounts of oppressed Afghan women victimised by the Taliban. 214 00:24:31,830 --> 00:24:38,970 In May of the previous year, a former staff members in the U.S. Embassy in Kabul had set up the IWW. 215 00:24:38,970 --> 00:24:45,750 The stories composed in the workshops at edited and published on their website, and judging by the comment section I read, 216 00:24:45,750 --> 00:24:51,470 mostly by women in the U.S. and other Western countries such as Canada and Australia. 217 00:24:51,470 --> 00:24:58,370 The project was partly funded by the US State Department, which is not surprising given its resonances with the memo. 218 00:24:58,370 --> 00:25:04,550 The support for these initiatives reflect an embrace of soft power strategies within US foreign policy, 219 00:25:04,550 --> 00:25:08,540 as articulated by the political strategist Joseph Nye, 220 00:25:08,540 --> 00:25:17,210 quoted in Today's Information Age success is the result not merely of whose army wins, but whose story wins. 221 00:25:17,210 --> 00:25:22,280 The idea of Afghan women speaking for themselves and telling their stories without mediation 222 00:25:22,280 --> 00:25:28,490 is central to the mission of the AWP in the history and mission statement on the website, 223 00:25:28,490 --> 00:25:36,380 A.W. found a measure. Hamilton says that in trying to learn about Afghanistan, she found that quote, 224 00:25:36,380 --> 00:25:42,740 the voices of women were primarily available only through the media or their men. 225 00:25:42,740 --> 00:25:46,880 We heard little from them directly. End of quote. 226 00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:51,680 The project is aimed at allowing Afghan women to have a direct voice in the world, 227 00:25:51,680 --> 00:25:56,540 not filtered through male relatives or members of the media, and to put. 228 00:25:56,540 --> 00:26:01,550 At a reading of the Alaskan Women's Poetry in Los Angeles in May 2014, 229 00:26:01,550 --> 00:26:07,310 executive director of the IWW Laurie Nowak emphasised the UNmediated nature of the story. 230 00:26:07,310 --> 00:26:13,040 She said it doesn't go through the media, it doesn't want to prove something that it has been might have said. 231 00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:21,770 The stories go through the channel and equip. The stories go through the channel of channels of IWW P and a published on the website, 232 00:26:21,770 --> 00:26:26,330 where people around the world can read them and says, No, it you know, right? 233 00:26:26,330 --> 00:26:29,990 Then that's what the women in Afghanistan are really thinking. 234 00:26:29,990 --> 00:26:38,270 End of quote This discourse of both intercity is central to the project, but these are true stories by real Afghan women. 235 00:26:38,270 --> 00:26:44,840 But such language conceals the ways in which the stories are strongly mediated through the framing of the workshops. 236 00:26:44,840 --> 00:26:51,050 The selection of the writers, the requirements of funding bodies and the structure of the workshops. 237 00:26:51,050 --> 00:26:58,410 All of these factors shape the voice of Afghan women that appears on the website. 238 00:26:58,410 --> 00:27:04,470 The case of the IWW illustrates the uses of storytelling in imperial statecraft, 239 00:27:04,470 --> 00:27:10,260 telling and publishing stories by Afghan women is a way to amplify certain moderate voices within 240 00:27:10,260 --> 00:27:16,950 Afghanistan at a time when the US was facing growing resistance to its role in interventionist wars. 241 00:27:16,950 --> 00:27:21,960 Those Afghan women who oppose U.S. intervention campaign against the US supported warlords in 242 00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:27,300 the parliament and seek to promote self-determination and economic independence for Afghanistan. 243 00:27:27,300 --> 00:27:36,000 A further marginalised, politically grappling with and analysing empirical details required suturing of the coin account of neoliberal 244 00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:44,580 subjectivity with Maxine and Gramsci accounts of class formation agency and contradiction through telling their stories. 245 00:27:44,580 --> 00:27:48,450 Afghan women did not only present themselves as individuals strivers, 246 00:27:48,450 --> 00:27:54,540 but they were encouraged to see themselves in class terms as part of a new and elite class strata. 247 00:27:54,540 --> 00:28:00,000 Gramsci and frameworks that focus focus on processes of class formation give us the tools to 248 00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:05,370 understand how these actors were integrated into strategies developed by dominant groups. 249 00:28:05,370 --> 00:28:10,830 I use Scrunches concept of transforming small to discuss how storytelling was part of a broader 250 00:28:10,830 --> 00:28:16,860 strategy in the Obama era to draw Muslim populations and others into projects of advocacy, 251 00:28:16,860 --> 00:28:25,170 civic education and electoral participation, and to absorb and demobilise mass antiwar and migrant rights protests. 252 00:28:25,170 --> 00:28:30,600 The focus on class strategies allows us to locate agency not simply within an order of reason, 253 00:28:30,600 --> 00:28:38,160 but in the actual actors themselves, all acting according to their own sets of logics and constraints within a shifting field. 254 00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:48,450 A.W. WP mentors encouraged Afghan women to use their stories to promote voting in the controversial national elections in Afghanistan in 2014, 255 00:28:48,450 --> 00:28:55,410 rather than mass mobilisations that could put pressure on the government and challenge the broader conditions of exploitation. 256 00:28:55,410 --> 00:29:00,300 Storytelling activities narrowed the field of action to the voting booth and Legislature, 257 00:29:00,300 --> 00:29:06,240 thereby reducing the range of independent actions available to groups at a time of growing concern 258 00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:11,910 about the role of the US as human rights violator and aggressive both domestically and abroad. 259 00:29:11,910 --> 00:29:16,770 The stories were also used to promote the image of the US as a benefactor nation. 260 00:29:16,770 --> 00:29:23,940 Afghan women and the readers of Best Stories often reinforced images of the US as a global crusader for women's rights 261 00:29:23,940 --> 00:29:30,150 by tying stories to electoral campaigns and by reinterpreting them through the lens of nationalist mythologies. 262 00:29:30,150 --> 00:29:36,750 A range of groups participated in a process of transport mismo that absorbed and diffused the discontent being oppressed, 263 00:29:36,750 --> 00:29:43,410 being expressed globally and domestically to what American supported neoliberal and imperialist policies. 264 00:29:43,410 --> 00:29:47,730 The grouchy lens allows us to understand not just how power is produced, 265 00:29:47,730 --> 00:29:53,280 but also the contradictions inherent in class strategies that can enable forms of resistance. 266 00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:57,300 Sometimes these tensions crystallise into overt critiques. 267 00:29:57,300 --> 00:30:05,100 The WP had a few writers and readers who criticised the US government for killing Afghans with impunity while claiming to help the country. 268 00:30:05,100 --> 00:30:10,170 Afghan writers pointed out the opportunism of Western human rights and feminist networks, 269 00:30:10,170 --> 00:30:15,930 which glorify a few cases of Afghan women attacked by the Taliban while ignoring others. 270 00:30:15,930 --> 00:30:21,360 And one reader objected to the whole enterprise of Westerners trying to read Afghan women's stories 271 00:30:21,360 --> 00:30:28,090 online with no context and no sense of their own implication in the abuses that take place. 272 00:30:28,090 --> 00:30:35,470 The tensions, criticisms and refusal refusals show the process of neo liberalisation through storytelling as much more 273 00:30:35,470 --> 00:30:41,500 contested and flexible than supplying accounts have allowed for the concept of neoliberal governments. 274 00:30:41,500 --> 00:30:48,820 It is crucial to understand how certain kinds of curated stories have emerged in tandem with a free market economy, 275 00:30:48,820 --> 00:30:54,280 but this government itself is open to challenge and reformulation. 276 00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:59,170 Although neo liberalism may be ascendant, it is not seamlessly reproduced. 277 00:30:59,170 --> 00:31:06,400 Disaggregating actors logics and class processes through my empirical investigations has been one 278 00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:13,390 way to show the contested and contradictory ways that neo liberalism is created and recreated. 279 00:31:13,390 --> 00:31:24,530 Thank you. And you so much for this wonderfully thought-provoking presentation, I really enjoyed the richness of the examples. 280 00:31:24,530 --> 00:31:28,970 So we have now approximately 12 minutes for Q&A. 281 00:31:28,970 --> 00:31:37,910 And while members of the audience gather these fools and post the questions through the Q&A function, 282 00:31:37,910 --> 00:31:43,730 let me take advantage of my role as a chair and go for it. 283 00:31:43,730 --> 00:31:48,980 What is it about stories that makes them so relatable? 284 00:31:48,980 --> 00:31:53,240 What is it about stories that makes them also such a powerful tool? 285 00:31:53,240 --> 00:32:04,210 How to influence others? So I think the powerful thing about stories is that they they speak to us emotionally. 286 00:32:04,210 --> 00:32:06,930 They speak to us emotionally, individually, personally. 287 00:32:06,930 --> 00:32:15,420 We hear a story and it's different to hearing a whole series of statistics which just tell us, you know what has happened? 288 00:32:15,420 --> 00:32:16,470 Give us a narrative about it. 289 00:32:16,470 --> 00:32:24,630 But they don't connect us with that narrative through our emotions, through our through our feelings and on a very individual sense. 290 00:32:24,630 --> 00:32:27,990 And I think that's both the power and peril of stories, right? 291 00:32:27,990 --> 00:32:33,180 Because the problem I'm kind of sort of outlining with the way stories curated stories have 292 00:32:33,180 --> 00:32:38,730 come to be used is that it's precisely that individualised problems that are structural, 293 00:32:38,730 --> 00:32:47,550 that are collective and that are broader than the individual, but by by sort of coming to see this in terms of, you know, the evil Taliban, the evil, 294 00:32:47,550 --> 00:32:55,680 the evil patriot, Afghanistan, Afghan men in the household treating his daughter in a particular way. 295 00:32:55,680 --> 00:33:02,490 We have a much narrower sense through these kinds of stories of actually what's happening now. 296 00:33:02,490 --> 00:33:10,800 I don't think that this is intrinsic to stories themselves, and I think we can think of many examples of very powerful stories that that can pay 297 00:33:10,800 --> 00:33:17,280 attention to broader structures that can get at the at the sort of depths of problems. 298 00:33:17,280 --> 00:33:26,120 But there are also stories out also vulnerable to being used in this way. 299 00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:33,020 And here we have a question from Olga grappling, the question is, 300 00:33:33,020 --> 00:33:43,460 I wonder if some of the books of Khalid Hosseini are actually based on Afghan woman storytelling, especially a thousand splendid songs? 301 00:33:43,460 --> 00:33:49,800 Thank you. You know, that's a really interesting question, I haven't read any of his books, 302 00:33:49,800 --> 00:34:03,320 and I I'm not sure if the question is asking if his storytelling is similar to the kind of storytelling found in the Afghan women's project or, 303 00:34:03,320 --> 00:34:05,660 you know, where that storytelling is coming from. 304 00:34:05,660 --> 00:34:11,750 But unfortunately, because I haven't read any of his books, I can't really compare it to the IWW project. 305 00:34:11,750 --> 00:34:19,520 But but I think that would be a really interesting thing to do is to actually sort of look at some of these narratives within literature. 306 00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:23,720 Someone like Lila Apple-Google has done that in her book on. 307 00:34:23,720 --> 00:34:26,780 It's called I Think Muslim Women Worth Saving. 308 00:34:26,780 --> 00:34:34,370 She looks at popular narratives of Afghan women and compares them to to these kind of these kind of narratives. 309 00:34:34,370 --> 00:34:44,110 These are more coming from official institutions. But unfortunately, since I haven't read it and I'm not too sure that. 310 00:34:44,110 --> 00:34:54,100 Thank you. In relation to the structure and the theme of this of this symposium. 311 00:34:54,100 --> 00:35:02,990 It is possible to say that the stories. Function slightly differently on international, national and grassroots level. 312 00:35:02,990 --> 00:35:12,710 Is there something specific about each of these levels and something which always strikes here? 313 00:35:12,710 --> 00:35:18,530 So one of the things that I argue in my book is that what's so interesting about 314 00:35:18,530 --> 00:35:25,160 what I'm calling curated stories is that they seem to follow a global template. 315 00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:30,410 And one of the things that I do in the book is I trace the origins and the emergence of this global template, 316 00:35:30,410 --> 00:35:35,930 and I trace the origins of them to the sort of human rights commissions of the 1980s, 317 00:35:35,930 --> 00:35:41,250 the truth commissions in Latin America and South Africa in various places where 318 00:35:41,250 --> 00:35:46,010 where a more sort of radical social movement storytelling that we might think of. 319 00:35:46,010 --> 00:35:56,180 You may have heard of Rigoberta Menchu in Guatemala or or people who told stories with the aim of sort of trying to foment radical social change. 320 00:35:56,180 --> 00:35:57,890 How through the process of the truth, 321 00:35:57,890 --> 00:36:07,610 commissions in the 1980s that get shifted into eventually a more kind of what I'm talking about neoliberal storytelling that curated storytelling. 322 00:36:07,610 --> 00:36:12,950 And so I'm sorry, I've forgotten the question. 323 00:36:12,950 --> 00:36:22,940 You can remind me the question, right? My question was really about the three different levels which we were imposing. 324 00:36:22,940 --> 00:36:28,550 Yes. So, so, so so what I'm interested in in looking at this global template. 325 00:36:28,550 --> 00:36:32,000 So and so out of these truth commissions, 326 00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:40,940 we begin to see this this type of curated storytelling adopted beyond that and going into all kinds of movements. 327 00:36:40,940 --> 00:36:43,940 And so I look at in the US, for instance, 328 00:36:43,940 --> 00:36:51,890 I see one of the master templates coming out at the time of the election in 2008 of Barack Obama that his election strategists 329 00:36:51,890 --> 00:36:58,580 came up with a template and then that template after he was elected was kind of dispersed and used by immigrant rights groups, 330 00:36:58,580 --> 00:37:06,290 environmental groups, all different kinds of organisations. And and it was kind of manufactured on a national level and then global level. 331 00:37:06,290 --> 00:37:11,490 So some of the same protocols and trainings used in the US began to be used all over the world. 332 00:37:11,490 --> 00:37:17,550 And and one of the things I'd look at is I look at the similarities between them and there is quite a bit of similarity. 333 00:37:17,550 --> 00:37:23,390 So in terms of these different levels, I'm interested in how one case can become nationalised. 334 00:37:23,390 --> 00:37:28,880 It can also go to the global level to Afghanistan, right to Australia, where I am. 335 00:37:28,880 --> 00:37:34,580 But then how it's also interpreted and used at the very grassroots level. 336 00:37:34,580 --> 00:37:41,000 Thank you so much. We have two more questions. First came from Alex Martins. 337 00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:50,670 So what do you think the long term psychological and otherwise effect of this type of storytelling as imperialist 338 00:37:50,670 --> 00:38:02,360 statecraft are on populations both in countries experiencing conflict and in Western countries that perpetrate the wars? 339 00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:07,220 So I think there are sort of in effects in both of those contexts, so one. 340 00:38:07,220 --> 00:38:09,680 So if we take, for instance, the IWW p, 341 00:38:09,680 --> 00:38:17,880 I think that the effect that it has had is to kind of encourage the formation of these what I call these neo liberal subjectivities. 342 00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:27,680 So these kind of entrepreneurial subjects, the young, upwardly mobile Afghan women who's educated, who aspires to sort of be western right, 343 00:38:27,680 --> 00:38:35,720 who aspires to Western concepts of marriage, of personhood, of being a career woman and in writing these stories. 344 00:38:35,720 --> 00:38:43,040 And there were very select group that these women are selected from US educational institutions within Afghanistan. 345 00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:50,660 So they were already an elite literate, educated sector of the population, upwardly mobile friendly to the United States. 346 00:38:50,660 --> 00:38:54,140 But the women who were doing this and you know, 347 00:38:54,140 --> 00:38:58,820 these stories are not being read by the majority of people in Afghanistan because they're in English, right? 348 00:38:58,820 --> 00:39:01,310 So that's right away tells us who the audience is. 349 00:39:01,310 --> 00:39:09,830 The audience is mostly the women writing the stories would develop, developing a sense of themselves as Western oriented entrepreneurial subjects. 350 00:39:09,830 --> 00:39:17,030 And then the women in Western countries. And it's really interesting how the women who were reading these stories in Western 351 00:39:17,030 --> 00:39:22,610 countries and commenting on these stories are themselves developing a concept of themselves. 352 00:39:22,610 --> 00:39:30,440 The psychological as this and said, developing a sense of themselves as living in a post-feminist society because they read the stories of the poor, 353 00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:35,360 oppressed Afghan woman in this conflict zone being oppressed by the Taliban. 354 00:39:35,360 --> 00:39:36,020 And they say, 355 00:39:36,020 --> 00:39:46,370 I'm so lucky that my society has resolved issues of patriarchy that I no longer have to deal with a man treating me that way that I can go out, 356 00:39:46,370 --> 00:39:50,960 wear whatever I want, be sexually liberated, wear a bikini at the beach. 357 00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:56,840 I want to express love to my partner without any threat that I'm going to be killed, right? 358 00:39:56,840 --> 00:40:03,560 So. So it's having a psychological impact for the women reading these stories and thereby coming to think of themselves 359 00:40:03,560 --> 00:40:14,070 as somehow having superseded feminism that superseded patriarchy and living in a post-feminist society. 360 00:40:14,070 --> 00:40:23,640 Thank you, Katherine Gilbert is asking, can you say a little bit more about the specificity of women's voices in these curated stories? 361 00:40:23,640 --> 00:40:28,330 Are women's stories curated differently to men's stories? 362 00:40:28,330 --> 00:40:39,940 I mean. Um, yeah, you know, I guess I'm just trying to think because so in this chapter of the book I did, you know it was it was all women, 363 00:40:39,940 --> 00:40:48,220 so there wasn't really any men's stories attached to compare them with because it's the Afghan women's writing project. 364 00:40:48,220 --> 00:40:57,940 And I'm trying to think actually, most of the chapters in my book are looking at women's stories. 365 00:40:57,940 --> 00:41:07,810 One of the things that I do is I compare Afghanistan with Venezuela, for instance, and I look at storytelling in Under Chavez. 366 00:41:07,810 --> 00:41:13,720 Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in the early 2000s, which I, which is another place where I did quite a bit of field research. 367 00:41:13,720 --> 00:41:17,680 And now I guess we could refer to Venezuela as a conflict zone as well. 368 00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:23,770 Even though the time when I did my field research, there was not at that point something would be considered a conflict place. 369 00:41:23,770 --> 00:41:29,200 But there I looked, for instance, at the stories of that the narrative of Hugo Chavez himself. 370 00:41:29,200 --> 00:41:32,320 I looked at his autobiography and I think to me, 371 00:41:32,320 --> 00:41:43,000 what was interesting was that the men's story and the way in which it's told is told very much in an epic format like there wasn't so much about. 372 00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:49,090 And I guess I should be a little careful here because I did find men's stories in Venezuela that were not 373 00:41:49,090 --> 00:41:55,630 told in this epic format that were also very particular and specific as compared to the epic narrative, 374 00:41:55,630 --> 00:42:07,180 which which we saw with someone like Chavez who talked about, you know, his his spiritual awakening, his ideological awakening, his, 375 00:42:07,180 --> 00:42:16,570 you know, reaching a point of consciousness changing and then the next minute sort of entering into his historic role in the world. 376 00:42:16,570 --> 00:42:21,370 And and I think when I'm looking at a lot of the women's stories that were more focussed on the 377 00:42:21,370 --> 00:42:25,990 everyday normal focussed on the domestic sphere that one were more focussed on the aspects of the body. 378 00:42:25,990 --> 00:42:29,810 And like I said, there were men's stories in Venezuela found like that as well. 379 00:42:29,810 --> 00:42:35,800 So I'm not sure that that's, you know, necessarily a fixed gender distinction that I want to make. 380 00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:47,850 But I am, you know, curious that there are certain ways in which stories can also be kind of masculine ized or feminised as well. 381 00:42:47,850 --> 00:42:55,110 Well, there's another very fascinating question, but I'm afraid that the time is up as the first panel is about to begin. 382 00:42:55,110 --> 00:43:01,680 So we will send you two questions later so you can maybe answer in writing if it's possible. 383 00:43:01,680 --> 00:43:09,810 Thank you again for joining us today. Many thanks to the audience as well for your attention and these challenging questions. 384 00:43:09,810 --> 00:43:14,050 And Jesse, over to you. Thank you. 385 00:43:14,050 --> 00:43:16,970 Thank you very much, thank you for the presentations, the Sujata.