I examine Nelofer Pazira and Paul Jay's 2004 documentary, Return to Kandahar . The film's narrative revolves around Pazira's search for a friend (Pazira is an Afghani-Canadian). At one point, Pazira asks herself, “Should I go and pull her burqa off?” Given how the invasion of Afghanistan was cloaked in supposedly feminist desires to liberate Afghani women, it is not surprising that this question implies a “benevolent” or “modernizing” intervention. I focus on how Pazira asks this question of herself as an Afghan subject (a reflective question) but in the presence of a Western audience. Although this may support contemporary debates around authority over voice and representation, it also produces the native informant: the classic anthropological sidekick who tells her faithful audience about the novel idiosyncrasies of her “traditional” society while inviting various interventionist discourses. I thus argue that Return to Kandahar is not merely a site where series of discourses including feminist interventionist compulsions and Orientalist tropes on modernity and Islam are negotiated, it is also a site where Pazira becomes an Orientalized insider subject who mediates the audience's encounter with the Other; she is positioned within a supposedly traditional society and yet also exposed enough to modernity to speak to the audience. My discussion is organized around the question Pazira asks herself about taking off a woman's burqa: the voyeuristic witnessing of a conversation supposedly occurring within the text between the Afghan female subject and herself thus becomes a site to know, and ultimately intervene in the affairs of, the temporally-distanced “non-modern” Other.
“Should I Go and Pull Her Burqa Off?”: Feminist Compulsions, Insider Consent, and a Return to Kandahar
Abstract
I examine Nelofer Pazira and Paul Jay's 2004 documentary, Return to Kandahar . The film's narrative revolves around Pazira's search for a friend (Pazira is an Afghani-Canadian). At one point, Pazira asks herself, “Should I go and pull her burqa off?” Given how the invasion of Afghanistan was cloaked in supposedly feminist desires to liberate Afghani women, it is not surprising that this question implies a “benevolent” or “modernizing” intervention. I focus on how Pazira asks this question of herself as an Afghan subject (a reflective question) but in the presence of a Western audience. Although this may support contemporary debates around authority over voice and representation, it also produces the native informant: the classic anthropological sidekick who tells her faithful audience about the novel idiosyncrasies of her “traditional” society while inviting various interventionist discourses. I thus argue that Return to Kandahar is not merely a site where series of discourses including feminist interventionist compulsions and Orientalist tropes on modernity and Islam are negotiated, it is also a site where Pazira becomes an Orientalized insider subject who mediates the audience's encounter with the Other; she is positioned within a supposedly traditional society and yet also exposed enough to modernity to speak to the audience. My discussion is organized around the question Pazira asks herself about taking off a woman's burqa: the voyeuristic witnessing of a conversation supposedly occurring within the text between the Afghan female subject and herself thus becomes a site to know, and ultimately intervene in the affairs of, the temporally-distanced “non-modern” Other.Preview Only. This article cannot be rented because we do not currently have permission from the publisher.
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“Should I Go and Pull Her Burqa Off?”: Feminist Compulsions, Insider Consent, and a Return to Kandahar
Follow Critical Studies in Media Communication
, Volume 25 (1): 48-67
Informa Healthcare – Mar 1, 2008
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