Azra Rashid
Azra Rashid is an instructor in the Humanities Department at John Abbott College in Montreal and Research Fellow in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney. Azra’s research is focused on testimony and representations of gender in discourses of war.
Biography
Azra Rashid is an instructor in the Humanities department at John Abbott College in Montreal, and research fellow in the department of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney. Azra’s research is focused on testimony and representations of gender in discourses of war. She has presented aspects of her research at international conferences and published in academic journals and anthologies on various issues concerning research methodology and representation of gender in the existing discourses of genocide. Her book, Gender and Genocide in Cambodia: Surviving Khmer Rouge (2023), explores the multiplicity of women’s experiences in the Cambodian genocide during the four-year rule of the Khmer Rouge. Her book, Gender, Nationalism and Genocide in Bangladesh: Naristhan/Ladyland (2018), investigates selective remembering of women’s experiences in the 1971 genocide in Bangladesh and offers a counter-narrative that emphasizes a gendered reading of that genocide. Azra also has over 15 years of experience as a filmmaker and story-teller. Her films have been screened at international film festivals and broadcast on national television in Canada.Education
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Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Sydney, Australia
Postdoctoral Fellow, McGill University, Canada, 2016-2018
PhD, Concordia University, Canada, 2011-2016
MJ, Ryerson University, Canada, 2009-2010
Broadcast Journalism, Seneca@York, Canada, 2004-2005
BA (Hon.), University of Toronto, Canada, 1999-2003
Areas of Research / Professional Expertise
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Gender; Genocide; Trauma; Memory; Testimony; Archive; Film; Research-Creation
Books
Articles
The Other World: Diasporas and Their Memories of War
Published: Feb 01, 2024 by Public, Volume 34, Issue 68, Dec 2023, p. 41 - 50
Authors: Azra Rashid
Subjects:
Media and Cultural Studies, Asian Studies, Gender & Intersectionality Studies
This paper offers a brief meditation on representations and framing of the trauma of women survivors of war living in diaspora, and the utility of academic and creative methods, namely Research-Creation, that allow us a re-framing of the narrative by creating a space for feminist solidarity and remembering.
ON TRAUMA: WOMEN PERPETRATORS OF THE KHMER ROUGE
Published: Sep 09, 2023 by Liminality of Justice in Trauma and Trauma Literature
Authors: Azra Rashid
This paper looks at the turbulent history of Cambodia that led to the ascent of the Khmer Rouge to power and examines the Khmer Rouge perpetrators as historically wronged people. Focusing on the women perpetrators of the Khmer Rouge, this essay closely examines perpetrator trauma with the help of the testimony of Bet Bouen, a former member of the Khmer Rouge.
The Politics of Veiling and Unveiling: The Feminist Revolution of Iran
Published: Nov 12, 2022 by Feminist Media Studies
Authors: Azra Rashid
The murder of Mahsa Amini has galvanized a movement for women’s rights and freedom in Iran. Translating political movements and their slogans is often a daunting task, as identities, histories, and struggles are not easily translatable cross-culturally.This article argues that reframing the discourse to focus on the protest as being against state control, instead of hijab, will be a more useful way forward for feminist movement globally.
Making Visible the Work of Translation in Transnational Feminist Research
Published: Aug 16, 2021 by Canadian Journal of Communication, Volume 46(3), 2021.
Authors: Azra Rashid
Transnational feminist work seeks to cross boundaries that are more than just state borders. This article explores some of the mechanisms and strategies that can be employed by researchers, their participants and collaborators working cross-culturally in order to bring visibility to gender(ed) representations and their mediation within and by a cross-cultural feminist research project.
Racism & the Americanization of Canadian history: Why we shouldn’t look at ourselves through a U.S. lens
Published: May 26, 2021 by The Conversation
Authors: Azra Rashid
The article looks at the Americanization of Canadian history
Canadian women who joined ISIS should be repatriated, investigated and rehabilitated
Published: Mar 31, 2021 by The Conversation
Authors: Azra Rashid
This article looks at gender-based discrimination in government's efforts to repatriate women who joined ISIS
Crossroads in new media, identity and law
Published: Nov 27, 2017 by Information, Communication & Society
Authors: Azra Rashid
Identity, as a process of articulation, forces not only creation and recognition of self but also of the ‘other’, both subject to their relative place in history.Since its inception mass media, with its one-to-many communication model, was to become an integral part of nationalist identity-building project. The advent of ICTs in the 21st century, with its many-to-many communication, the medium itself has been democratized.
Gender, nationalism and genocide
Published: Apr 01, 2014 by II International Conference Gender and Communication: Conference Proceeding
Authors: Azra Rashid
Currently, the feminist scholarship is divided on the relative importance of gender and ethnicity in the context of violence endured by women in genocide. Instead of treating “women” as a unified category and transcending history, space and boundaries, there is a need for detranscendentalization within the feminist discourse on representation of women’s experiences in genocide.
Gender and Genocide: A Research-Creation Project
Published: Jan 12, 2014 by Canadian Journal of Communication
Authors: Azra Rashid
Nationalism, rooted in the word nation, binds individuals to an imaginary home- land by virtue of shared characteristics, ethnicity, and landscape. Feminist scholarship has demonstrated that nationalism is gendered, crafted to serve masculine privilege. Genocide occurs when nationalism, itself a product of imagination, creates imaginary subjects, who fight over imaginary homelands, and the site of violence becomes women’s bodies.
Reconstruction of Identity in Post-Genocide Rwanda
Published: Jan 01, 2014 by Revue africaine de communication: Médias, conflits et droits humains
Authors: Azra Rashid
Identity is positional and strategic; it is constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed depending on the conditions and scenarios facing an individual or group. This paper, through the use of a case study, argues that if identities are constructed in relation to the "other", then they can also be deconstructed as a result of crimes of mass atrocity such as genocide, and then reconstructed in a post-genocide scenario.
Videos
Published: Dec 31, 2021
Using research-creation as methodology, this film investigates the multiplicity of the gendered experiences in the Cambodian genocide. This project examines the testimonies from women who experienced and survived the Pol Pot rule from various vantage points. This film pays close attention to the work of translation and interpretation that accompanies a transcultural research undertaking. This project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Published: Sep 16, 2016
As part of doctoral research, the film takes a critical look at the selective remembering of women’s experiences in the nationalist narratives of genocide. The essay film foregrounds the researcher/filmmaker’s subjectivity in talking about the 1971 war in Bangladesh and features stories of four women who experienced the 19771 war in Bangladesh.
Published: Oct 30, 2018
Food empowers individuals. “Food crisis,” heightened during times of war and genocide, is an inevitable result of colonization, militarization & corruption. In communities ravaged by death and destruction, women learn new skills to survive, including how to start and run their own businesses. Food for these women has become a statement of resistance as they turn the meaning of domestic space on its head and re-claim the space that was traditionally assigned to them without a choice.
Published: Dec 12, 2015
A Woman’s Story is a documentary film that challenges the silencing of women’s pain and trauma in the mainstream discourses on genocide and offers an intimate portrait of three survivors – from the Holocaust, the 1971 genocide in Bangladesh, and the Rwandan genocide of 1994 – through their stories of survival and resilience.
Published: Dec 12, 2007
"Dishonour Defied" is a feature length documentary film on rape and status of women in Pakistan, focusing on the story of Mukhtar Mai who was gang raped in a remote village in Pakistan on the orders of a tribal council. Unlike many women before her Mukhtar Mai decided to confront her assailants. Dishonour Defied is the story of how Mukhtar Mai made a life with courage after the tragedy that befell her.
Published: Dec 12, 2010
Unveiling the Abuse is a documentary about forced marriages in Canada and whether Canada's multicultural policies render women vulnerable to abuse at the hands of family in the name of culture and tradition. The documentary tells the story of Sandeep Chand, a Canadian woman of South Asian descent, who was forced into marriage twice by her family under the guise of the age-old tradition of "arranged marriage."