“I FORGOT HOW STRONG I HAVE BEEN”: A NARRATIVE INQUIRY OF ONE AFGHAN WOMAN’S STORIED EXPERIENCES

Abstract

Ever since the tragic events of 9/11, popular news media have either overlooked Afghan women completely, or they have consistently and repeatedly portrayed them as silenced victims in need of saving (see, e.g., Chowdury, 2016; Cloud, 2004; Fowler, 2007; MacDonald, 2016; Rasul & McDowell, 2015; Terman, 2017; Zeiger, 2011.). Colonialist rhetoric abounds in news reports about Afghan women, and arguments in favor of “saving the brown women from the brown men” (Cloud, 2004, p. 289) developed in tandem with and in support of a pro-war discourse during the post-9/11era. Since 2001, this “gendered orientalism” (Terman, 2017, p. 489) in news reports has repeatedly diverted the focus from the actual lived experiences of Afghan women to the silencing or marginalization of them—intentionally or not (see, e.g., Fowler, 2007; Rasul & McDowell, 2015). This dissertation is a narrative inquiry study with Parvana, a 23-year-old Afghan woman living in Afghanistan. A postcolonial feminist framing offers a critique of western single-story portrayals of Afghan women while simultaneously shedding light on “gender domination within a patriarchal society” (Creswell & Poth, 2018, p. 28) and opening possibilities for focusing on resistance and resilience. Narrative inquiry pursues deep and personal explorations of individual storied experiences which shed light on Parvana’s actual lived experiences and multiple literacy practices while also challenging the static narrative in western news cycles which presents Afghan women as invisible, voiceless, and agentless. The overarching research questions guiding this study include the following: What key moments have shaped the life of a young Afghan woman? What nuances, complications, and tensions do her storied experiences of everyday life as an Afghan woman living in Afghanistan reveal? What do her stories reveal about her multiple literacy practices for navigating daily life? Data collection includes open-ended interviews, written stories, book talks, photographs, and artifacts. Data analysis includes enthymematic/syllogistic analysis, three-dimensional narrative analysis, thematic analysis, design analysis (available designs, designing, the redesigned), artifactual analysis, and poetic re-storying. Findings include Parvana’s complex and creative multiliteracy strategies for coping, finding strength, and resisting in the face of precarity. Potential contributions to the field include a focus on collaborative approaches for organizations interested in developing culturally appropriate strategies for understanding and supporting Afghan women; new models for cultivating online transnational collaborative relationships; and creative approaches to decolonizing report writing while honoring participants’ stories in more authentic ways.