ABSTRACT

The relationship between gender and citizenship has been a complex and sensitive one—cultural theorists of citizenship and the nation-state (e.g., Benhabib 2002) argue that the universal body imagined in connection to the state and the nation refers predominantly to a white, male, and heterosexual body. Because female bodies play a fundamental role in current conflicts—women are frequently represented as the primary victims of physical and systemic violence (Mohanty 2002) and, more recently, as warriors, soldiers, or terrorists (e.g. Alexander and Hawkesworth 2008; Berger and Naaman 2011; Conway and McInerney 2012; Ponzanesi, this volume)—the poetics and politics of women’s resistance calls for a renewed analysis through feminist theory. 1 Challenging traditional division between private and public space, this chapter, in line with the whole volume, explores opportunities of communication, reconciliation, and restoration from a gendered perspective.