Book on sexual violence in 1971 launched

A new book ‘The Spectral Wound: Sexual violence, public memories and the Bangladesh war of 1971’ by Nayanika Mookherjee published by Duke University Press, a Durham based university in North Carolina of the United States,  was launched on Sunday.
The book was launched at Bangladesh’s Drik Gallery in the capital through a simple function chaired by noted photographer Shahidul Alam.
In ethnography of sexual violence during Bangladesh’s war of independence, Nayanika portrays how the public celebration of hundreds of thousands of rape victims — called ‘birangonas’ by the state — works to homogenize and silence the experiences of these women.
Nayanika Mookherjee is reader in Socio-Cultural Anthropology at Durham University.
She said following the 1971 independence war, the Bangladesh government publicly designated the thousands of women raped by the Pakistani military and their local collaborators as birangonas, (‘brave women’).
Nayanika Mookherjee demonstrates that while this celebration of birangonas as heroes keeps them in the public memory, they exist in the public consciousness as what Mookherjee calls a spectral wound.
Photographer Taslima Akther discussed about the photos relating to the stories of rapes.
Among others, Jahangirnagar University teacher Rahnuma Ahmed, human rights activist Hameeda Hossain and lawyer Sara Hossain, were present at the programme.

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