Feminism and Islam in the visual age

The visual representation of the Afghan woman

Abstract

In 1992, William J.T. Mitchell introduced the concept of 'pictorial turn' to account for how the visual shapes our knowledge of the world. Swiftly, this became a fundamental issue for International Relations as much of the knowledge we have about the world is produced and reproduced through the dissemination of images. It is in this context that the study of visual representation in the international system becomes relevant. This essay is grounded on the postulates of poststructuralism and postcolonial perspectives to analyze how Afghan women were visually represented in the context of the Taliban's takeover of Kabul in August 2021. Using the notion of orientalist visibility apparatus, we argue that an analysis that articulates the visual and the discursive reveals that the representation of the Afghan woman as a 'Muslim woman with a hijab' in Western media (re)produces a paternalistic and patriarchal interpretation of the Islamic world, perpetuating power relations not only between East and West but also between hegemonic feminism and islamic feminism.