Durham: Duke University Press, 2015. xxiv, 325 pp. (Figures.) US$26.95, paper. ISBN 978-0-8223-5968-5.
I was enthusiastic about reviewing this publication. The subject is fascinating, convoluted, provocative; a challenging anthropological endeavour. But then as I began reading, I found that I had to put the book down from time to time to clear my thoughts. Not because of the poignant issues discussed (and they are poignant), but because of the overwhelming inaccessibility of the presentation style.
The book’s title references the shadowy, phantom-like memory of wartime sexual violence against women and the aftermath of that violence in terms of women’s lived experiences and familial, community, and government responses. The rape of as yet undetermined thousands of women during the Bangladesh War of Independence (1971), perpetuated not only by the enemy Pakistani military but also by resident Bangladeshi collaborators, is redolent of women’s experiences the world over, wherever armed aggression degenerates into sexual violence.
In Bangladesh, the rapes represent a mortification that the government has variously tried to conceal, suppress, and/or commemorate with varying degrees of success. Moreover, since the women have had little control over the ways in which they are acknowledged as Birangona (war heroines), and only limited understanding of the possible consequences of such disclosure, they have been thrust into public view and exposed to new forms of scrutiny and critique. Nevertheless, the ways in which these women respond, recover, and reconstruct their lives are not necessarily as might be expected.
The research approach encompasses anthropological fieldwork combined with activist interviews and analysis of available written and visual materials. Establishing rapport and being present in the village of Enayetpur to see, hear, and participate allows the author to offer intimate insights into the lived experiences of three war heroines, their husbands, children, and extended families. Contextualized in history, politics, and memories of Indian and Bangladeshi independence, the author considers public representations of the women, secrecy (and openness) surrounding sexual violence, and the ways in which the birangonas remember, reinterpret, represent, and normalize their experiences. At a book launch at Drik Picture Library in Bangladesh (YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r5tEQHSxSo, January 2016), the author described a triangulation of birangona narratives, activist discourse, and literary and visual accounts. And, indeed, the chapters of the volume present these perspectives. For example, an analysis of familial and community responses to the rapes and subsequent government maneuverings highlight the power of words (khota) to wound and denigrate individuals. Words used toward and in the presence of the women and their family members reinforce behavioural norms and expectations, purportedly punish transgressions (perceived or real) and critique disclosure of enigmatic secrets that are held to be appropriately “known,” yet “not known,” particularly when disclosure is perceived to benefit those who make the revelation. Nevertheless, women negotiate relationships with husbands, children, and others on an ongoing basis and the language used to secure their places in family and community reveal subtle perspectives on (dis)honour, responsibility, power(lessness), victimization and “failed masculinity.”
Visual and literary representations of war, sexual violence, and the birangonas themselves complement discussion of activism in pursuance of memorialization, transitional justice, restitution, and rehabilitation. The author writes:
Along with using the metaphor of “combing” to ethnographically examine the birangonas’ narration of the “testimonial culture,” I…deconstruct the visual and state narratives of the birangona as sites of enunciation or effaced invocation through the analytical tools of absent presence of the spectral war heroine…The frequency with which the birangona is evoked, brought into existence so that she can be effaced and exited, inscribes her with the logic of a specter. Thereby she can be subjected to a double sense of calling into presence in her absence and made safely available for the nation… various literary, visual, and testimonial representations…make the birangona disappear even while affectively invoking her, bringing into play at the same juncture both of the connotations of combing over—searching for and hiding. In the nation’s positive conceptual formulation of the raped woman, she can only be exemplified in the absence of her presence, through horrific enactment and representation as a wound, which ensures a greater invocation of her “trauma”…The emphasis on the wound of the war heroine creates a pathological public sphere whereby the raped woman can only be perceived as a horrific alterity. (25)
In rereading, I reconsider, could my concerns with readability be exaggerated? I think not. I can decipher the meaning but have to work far too hard to do so. Sitting in the sun, over cups of chai latte, discussing my enthusiasm for the research findings, concomitant with consternation regarding their presentation, my colleague and friend welcomed me to the fellowship of academic curmudgeons, an invented, yet probable, group of old-school academics who struggle with the machinations of contemporary scholarly rhetoric. After all, if at the heart of good anthropological research is an interesting story, well told, doesn’t the responsibility for telling that story lie with the teller? Thus, the onus is on the writer to convey information in a clear and comprehensible manner, not on the reader to decipher perplexing language that obscures the story and/or its significance. After all, what purpose does academic writing serve if not to elucidate and enlighten? Moreover, with whom are we communicating? If only ourselves, then what is the point?
I recognize the modus operandi of the academy customarily demands demonstration of scholarly talent. Publish or perish persists and specialized neologisms that obfuscate meanings are de rigueur in some academic domains. That being said, this story is complex enough; the nuanced interpretation sufficient to reflect the intricacy of memory and experience. On that basis, I would recommend Spectral Wound if issues of women’s history, resilience and narrative are of interest. It is a fascinating (if challenging) read that provides a discerning exploration of a convoluted, tragic, and largely unheeded episode in South Asian history.
Margot Wilson
University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada
pp. 397-400