Female fighters shooting back: representation and filmmaking in post-conflict societies

Abstract

ABSTRACT Despite the fascination with female fighters in the international media, there is still limited knowledge about how female combatants see themselves and how their conflict experiences shape their lives after war. Women’s participation in armed conflict is often dismissed and depoliticized, emphasizing either their role as victims or as peacemakers. This article contributes to a body of literature that foregrounds the diverse voices of ex-combatant women, as a particular group who challenged traditional gender norms during conflict. Their narratives complicate the simplistic and limited depictions of female combatants and instead reveal a multi-layered and complex account of how communities of female ex-combatants frame their wartime experiences and daily lives today. The article proposes participatory documentary filmmaking as a feminist method to make female combatants’ experiences in conflict visible without extracting knowledge or speaking on their behalf. Working with two ex-combatant women from non-state armed movements in Aceh (Indonesia) and Burundi as co-researchers who collected and curated the stories of their former comrades on camera means that a more diverse and personal picture emerges. This article highlights the challenges, complexities, and possibilities of participatory filmmaking as an approach that can enrich the methodological toolkit of scholars researching women in conflict.