Selected Essays | The Paris Globalist

THE

PARIS GLOBALIST

VOLUME ONEÂ | MARCH 2020

Selected Essays

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Thank you to all students who submitted their essays for review, and to Sciences Po and the Paris School of International Affairs.

Edited by: Darcy French, Arthur Kaufman, and Sharbani Chattoraj Layout and Design: Pariesa Young

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CONTENTS 5

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR MARCHING ACROSS BORDERS - TRANSCULTURAL ACTIVISTS IN JAPAN

by Annina Claesson

“I was inspired to research and write this essay because of my own experiences participating in activist groups as a white foreigner. Not only were there cultural differences in how terms like "activist" were perceived, I noticed that Western participants seemed to operate under different rules and assumptions regarding political engagement than the Japanese group members. I wanted to explore how transcultural issues affected activist groups in a country where citizens are often assumed to be ‘apolitical.’”

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SEXUAL VIOLENCE AS A WEAPON OF WAR? THE CASE OF ABU GHRAIB

by Maximilian Freundlieb “Is it okay to apply rational choice theory to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV)? Does the process of rationalizing acts of violence touching the most intimate component of one’s identity take away the savage cruelty - because after all, it can be explained? Or am I attempting to put logic on an act without inherent logic?

This essay argues that CRSV is both with and without reason. There is no reason because nothing imaginable exists to be called on with explanatory prospects. A causal/explanatory relationship neglects much of what makes CRSV so cruel, such as its consequences on survivors. But CRSV does have a logical dimension if instrumentalized by armed groups.

Exploring their calculations helps to combat sexual violence in armed conflicts. This essay attempts to bring together both perspectives by presenting the rational ‘Weapons of War’ narrative and highlighting its limitations.”

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STRUCTURE AND AGENCY IN THE 2019 HONG KONG PROTESTS

by Jeremy Ho Yan Ha

“Mother Teresa once said, 'I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.' People have the power to transform private companies, government regimes or even the world. Since 2019, the Hong Kong protesters have ‘risked their lives, their health, their jobs and their education to support a better future of Hong Kong. We have also been nominated for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize. In class, we learned the merits and limitations of using the structure and agency framework to analyse political developments and events. As a Hongkonger living abroad, I then feel my responsibility to raise awareness of our ongoing demonstration.”

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Dear staff and students, I am so very pleased to be able to introduce you to the Paris Globalist essay selection of 2020!

With this publication of essays, we hope to feature some of the longer and more indepth pieces that Sciences Po students submitted for their classes last semester.

Often enough, their work and dedication is only read by their professors and perhaps a few peers. By publishing them in our student magazine, we are giving them the recognition they deserve.

Although we did not provide a theme for this selection, we did notice an overarching narrative in the three essays: They all, in one way or another, discuss the tools people use to influence public policy or other developments — either through activism (Annina), protests in a structure-agent framework (Jeremy), or by coercion, such as sexual violence (Maximilian).

Another common thread in the three selected essays is the inspiration behind them.

Each individual was inspired by the author’s own (academic) interests or personal experiences. Such backgrounds often make for the best-written works.

So as you turn the pages, I hope you’ll learn something new, and get inspired to explore complicated topics like these for your own future essays. Who knows, perhaps you’ll see them featured here next year!

Yours sincerely, Meike Eijsberg | Editor-in-Chief On behalf of The Paris Globalist Team 2019-2020

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Women's March Tokyo, 8 March 2019 photo: Annina Claesson

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Marching across borders transcultural activists in Japan The following research paper was produced as part of a methodology class at Sciences Po, emphasising positionality and reflexivity on the part of a researcher. This paper reflects upon methodological issues in the project’s research design and how the researcher’s personal background and approach may have affected the conduct of the study. It invites for reflection on broader methodological dilemmas while studying the topic of transcultural activism.

On March 8, 2019, I was slowly making my way over the Shibuya crossing in central Tokyo, when I heard a voice behind me ask, “Does being here make me an activist?” I turned around to see that this question had come from an older Japanese woman, who I knew had spent many years in what I would consider activist organisations. Surprised, I wondered if we did not mean the same thing by the word activist and why that could be.

Ten years ago, Willis and Murphy-Shigematsu (2008) identified Japan as moving in two seemingly another pursuing an ideal of internationalization and openness. In today’s global context, this is hardly a unique situation for a country to find itself in. Despite this, the “uniqueness” of Japan is often constructed by international media on the basis of its supposed homogeneity, both ethnically and politically. Most international news stories depicting Japan tend to use adjectives like “orderly,” “conformist,” or “homogenous.” They give the impression that Japanese democracy is riding a wave of consensus. Part of this may be due to a grand orientalist tradition of depicting Japan as inherently and exceptionally committed to hierarchy and obedience (Minear 1980). A growing body of work on Japan has sought to dismantle this idea. Befu (2001) argues that the received wisdom of a monolithic Japan was constructed after the fall of imperial Japan post World War II, both from inside and outside Japan,

Written by Annina Claesson

contradictory directions: one of increased isolation through sharpening discourse on immigration, and

as the nation sought to rebuild a sense of nationhood on new terms.

Social movements rarely fit into this constructed image. Nonetheless, Japan has a long history of vibrant activist movement. In Tokyo, 1968 holds as much significance as it does in Paris or Washington (Hirano 2008). During the past few years, journalists have argued that the 1968 movement is being revived by a wave of new student movements (Kingston 2015). What is perhaps a newer development among these groups is the global connectivity of today’s young Japanese activists. Many young Japanese activists are now eager to link up with their counterparts abroad, especially as many now claim Twitter as their home base. The state of Japanese social movements caught my attention between January and July 2019, when I lived in Tokyo, completing an internship at the United Nations University. The square outside the university building was a frequent gathering spot for protests and rallies, giving me a literal view into Japanese activism from my office window. As international news fed me messages of Japan as a “harmonious” society with politically pacified citizens, the people showing up with placards and megaphones on the square outside my window flew in the face of this assertion.

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Motivated by curiosity as well as sheer force of habit as a lifelong placard-holder, I got involved in a local feminist group as well as a climate strike group. I helped organize a march on International Women’s Day, along with other events, regularly joining discussions and workshops. What I had not fully expected was how my position as a white foreigner arguably gave me a narrower view into Japanese social movements through my active participation than the one I had enjoyed watching from my window.

Many of the Japanese members of the groups I participated in tended to have some sort of international experience. Particularly in regard to gender-related issues, rhetoric of Japan being “behind” other countries often emerged in discussions with these members. My own country of origin (Sweden) was often brought up as a contrasting example of ideal gender equality, a premise I tended to disagree with. I found myself uncertain on how to navigate the coding of certain ideals and ideologies as “Western” or at least “un-Japanese” as a white foreigner. While I experienced a positive sense of camaraderie among the members, I also sensed that not everyone was participating under the same conditions. In discussions, foreigners (usually white ones, including myself) tended to emphasise our role as “outsiders,” making constant disclaimers over our inability to properly criticise or comment on a culture and language in which we were not raised. At the same time, there was also an implicit understanding that we would not face significant consequences for doing so. Meanwhile, many Japanese members were careful to never show their faces in our photos or use their real names in our publications for fear of risking their jobs, something non-Japanese members rarely worried about. Many international members of the groups were eager to identify themselves as “activists” in Japan, while other Japanese members with a longer history of active engagement in these groups were more hesitant to adopt such an identity marker.

Through this experience, I felt that several complicated layers of transcultural interaction and power relations were at play in the formation and running of these mixed activist groups in Japan. Through this paper, I want to further explore how members of these mixed groups navigate such challenges and what this implies for the specific transcultural dynamics involved with social movements in Japan. I aimed to learn more about how the participants related to their own multiple identities while engaging in activist work, and how these identities may change and be in flux depending on different settings and environments. I also aimed to find out more about both positive and negative aspects of transculturalism within and outside of activist groups in Japan.

For this reason, this paper aims to take a methodological approach based in transcultural theory. As defined by Scholte’s work (2014), transcultural theory approaches cultural studies holistically, with a focus on the relationships among multiple identities in interconnecting dialogue, rather than considering each identity individually. Transcultural methodology necessitates critical self-reflection on the part of the researcher, assessing power dynamics and cultural complexities with the goal of giving equal value to different cultural worldviews (West et al 2017).

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Crucially, cultural diversity is not just about ethnicity. A study of complex interactions between cultures is a study on borderlessness as well as boundaries. In a transcultural view, diverse (nonJapanese) communities are not imagined as units separate from Japanese society, but as integral parts of the whole. A transcultural approach sees culture as a process, regarding identity not as a material, immovable fact, but as something that is continuously constructed and deconstructed (Willis and Murphy-Shigematsu 2008).

Aside from this body of work, this paper most closely rests upon Karen Kelsky’s (2008) work exploring the personal accounts of what she describes as “professionally ambitious” women with international experience and how they relate to gender stratification in Japan. Kelsky describes how these women, discontent with Japanese gender norms, aligned with or rejected internationalism at different points in their lives, as their hopes of achieving more professional success abroad were complicated by their national identity as Japanese women. Their “exodus,” though not always directed to the West, was often undertaken as a defection to an idea of the West as a “modern” emancipatory environment.

These dynamics mirror what I observed among the Japanese group members with international experience, where the idea of “the West” would sometimes be upheld and dismantled within the same sentence.

Just as Kelsky points out that these attitudes were found among well-off, urban, university-educated women in Japan seeking careers in management, this approach to “internationalism” may have been found in the groups I participated in due to their class makeup. Middle-class Tokyoites have access to a different kind of activism than immigrant factory workers in rural Sendai. In particular, Japanese feminist movements are not, and have never been, characterised by a uniform approach to “internationalism” nor to the West. While groups predominantly made up of urban, professional women frustrated at the discrimination they face in their careers tend to embrace internationalist rhetoric and look to other countries as models, feminists outside of this sphere of privilege (because of their age, class, or location) tend to reject this mode of discourse (Kelsky 2008, Saito 1997).

Some feminist actors particularly reject internationalist rhetoric on the basis that it implies that there is nothing to be done to change Japan from within; that the only two options are to suffer in Japan or go abroad. Feminist author Matsubara Junko (1989) describes her own journey from thinking that the West was inherently “better for women” to organising for change in her home country: from feeling a sense of superiority when performing the role of a globalised, “emancipated” woman by learning English and speaking with foreigners, to realising that these ideas were as confining as her “native” gender role, motivating her to take more radical action. There is a tension between the objective of connecting internationally in order to spread a certain message more widely or to build alliances and the risk of buying into an idea of a “more advanced” West. This is a challenge that transcultural activists with international experience sometimes embody by virtue of their own life trajectories.

Transculturalism is indeed not a risk-free experience. Kelsky (2008) found that particularly in the case

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of young women, their experiences of transculturalism also invoked a sense of homelessness.

Returning to Japan after living abroad, they felt disconnected from a society that superficially promoted borderlessness and internationalisation while reinforcing boundaries between Japanese and foreigners, male and female, including expectations from their own families.

While I knew that the groups I was involved in would have to be my point of access, I initially hesitated between interviewing people I already knew or recruiting strangers. I wanted to avoid looking for the kind of answers I wanted to have by pre-selecting interview subjects who would likely give me those types of answers. At the same time, geographic distance made the recruitment of strangers more complicated. In the end, the choice was made for me. I first reached out to two members of the feminist group in Tokyo that I consider personal friends. The first one (Yui) readily accepted. The second one (the founder of the English-speaking section of the group) refused after a long period of consideration, as she was dealing with trying personal circumstances that left her with little free time. As I was now close to my deadline, I decided to try my hand at recruiting strangers. Via a contact I had met at a university conference in Tokyo, I reached out via email to a branch of the national feminist organization Voice Up Japan, based at an international, English-language university near Tokyo. The founder of the branch (Maya), as well as another member (Shiori), volunteered to be interviewed together. I thus had a total of three interview subjects, two of whom I did not previously know.

I had initially aimed to interview a mix of Japanese (or half-Japanese) and non-Japanese (“foreigner”) members of activist groups to gain both the perspective of the “classic” outsider (someone who moved to Japan as an adult for a short period of time) as well as the insider view. In the end, my interview subjects defined themselves, respectively, as ethnically Chinese and naturalised Japanese with significant experience in the US (Yui), half-Japanese and half-British with experience living in Australia (Maya) and fully Japanese but having partly grown up in the US (Shiori). All had experience of international mobility, had graduated from or were currently enrolled in university, and spoke English fluently or as a first language. This made for a slightly different dynamic of comparison than I had initially intended but also allowed me to make new and perhaps deeper discoveries about the experiences they had in common.

All three interviewees wished to remain anonymous. I have thus chosen pseudonyms for each of them to be used in this paper. Any specific references to their named university or workplaces have also been removed.

The interview process - hegemonic limitations Firstly, the critical issue of my own positionality as a Western researcher in this exercise needs to be addressed. Considering the subject matter of my interviews, the emerging tradition of feminist

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reflexive practice serves as a useful frame of reference. The growing body of work in transnational feminist research was a particularly pertinent theoretical foundation. Feminist reflexive practice required attention to unequal power relations coming into play in the interaction between the researcher and the interview subject (Mohanty 1984, Chacko 2004, Lunny 2019). When conducting transnational research, this practice becomes even more important, as such dimensions are often veiled by an alleged transnational focus (Hundle et al 2019). My own privilege as a universityeducated white European influences my understanding and point of view regarding activism in Japan, much as I already felt it rather limited my point of entry into such groups during the time I spent in Tokyo.

I once again referred to Kelsky to inform my own reflexive practice in regards to the interview process. Reflecting upon the conduct of her interviews, Kelsky (2008) notes that as a white, American woman, she was frequently called upon to share in a discourse of allegiance to the West and an idea that “things are better” for women outside of Japan. She notes that she invariably failed to live up to this idea, as she was not only married to a Japanese man and brought with her a great deal of scepticism about the emancipatory potential of America. This sometimes had a jarring effect for her interviewees, cited as one of the primary problems of her fieldwork. She writes: The Western anthropologist (...) is the native of that West/modernity/universalism that circulates transnationality; she is both “native informant” for subjects’ knowledge and identity projects, and conduit for the circulation of these projects back to the Western metropolis. To fail to account for this can only be to again reinscribe the unmarked universality of the white Westerner in anthropology as elsewhere.

In my case, the most obvious expression of this power dynamic is my use of English as the language of interaction. Far from a neutral choice, the use of the hegemonic English language risks overwriting meanings and homogenising culturally specific thought, which carries real costs. There is evidence that Western scholars in transnational activism have neglected an extensive body of Asian grassroots movement-generated literature, particularly in the pre-Internet era, purely because this body of work was not produced in English (Lunny 2019). In particular, in the realm of feminist activism, there is a certain “feminist English” standardised through online discourse, often with origins in Western academia, which may take a hegemonic position over local activist traditions (Baril 2016) This was an issue I wanted to actively address in my interviews, as it frequently came up during discussions in the groups I participated in.

However, I hesitated to contact a few of my Japanese-speaking contacts to ask if they would want to participate, as I did not feel confident enough in my Japanese language skills to comfortably conduct an interview and give it a fair interpretation in Japanese. This meant that I was limited to participants who felt comfortable in English, which by definition excluded other categories of Japanese activists, particularly those anchored in a more local context. The very fact that I was using the colonial language of English centred the Western-centric discourse at the root of cause the very issues among

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transcultural groups that I wished to study. It also reinforced my position as a Western foreigner. This not only highlighted power dynamics regarding ethnicity and language, but I, as a researcher, was also assumed to come from a particular cultural perspective and to be unfamiliar with the Japanese context. Several interviewees started sentences with “I don’t know if you know about this, but…,” implying a possibility that they may have self-censored certain parts of their accounts because of what they assumed to be my limited sphere of knowledge, created by the enforced linguistic (and geographic) distance between us.

To try to address this issue, I initially contacted Voice Up Japan in Japanese, while specifying that the interview itself would be in English, to at least invite some mode of interaction in their own native language. I tried to encourage my interview subjects to use words in Japanese that they felt were hard to translate, to help them feel like they did not have to avoid expressing aspects of their cultural reality for fear of not being understood. I also invited them to reflect upon the difficulties of translation within an activist context. With Yui, this was easier, as she knew from our previous interactions that she could skip translating some Japanese terms if she wanted to use them (such as the expression “shou ga nai” - “it can’t be helped”). Nevertheless, the use of English remained a significant factor in colouring both the selection of and dynamic with my interview subjects. Yui directly addressed the issue of the dominance of English in a broader sense: I often think about the legitimacy of English as a lingua franca as well, because of how it became the lingua franca, because it was pretty forceful... but at the same time, we kind of have to... think outside of the box, smash the rules, but then... the other side of me is like, uh, let's play this game a little bit…

The unspoken fact was that we, too, were “playing the game” by using English as a lingua franca in this very interaction. Within this statement, Yui summarised the issue of having to use tools, such as the English language, that may not be ideal in terms of the political (or epistemological) aim of the activity, forcing us to question why those tools are seen as the only option in the first place.

Another question pertinent to my own positionality as an interviewer is to what extent I should engage in self-disclosure as someone who has taken part in feminist groups and is likely to share many political views with the interview subject. While this was not an issue with Yui, whom I had worked with in said groups, it became more relevant when cold-contacting Voice Up Japan. Mindful of the possibility of self-disclosure being interpreted as violating the norms of the research encounter (Ribbens 1989), I mentioned to the interview subjects from Voice Up Japan the type of event where I had first encountered their organisation, leaving them to draw conclusions for themselves. However, in both interviews, I noticed myself instinctually giving positive reinforcement (humming in agreement, saying “great!”) to certain statements in order to position myself as broadly aligned with their general goals as activists. This may have been helpful in building rapport, but may also have affected how they perceived the situation as a research exercise.

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Finally, due to the geographic distance between me and my interview subjects, all interviews were conducted over Skype. This was largely a limitation for the interview process, as the screen acts as a boundary hindering non-verbal cues and overall rapport, effectively disembodying the interview (Deakin and Wakefield 2014). This likely particularly affected the interview process with Maya and Shiori, whom I did not previously know. Nevertheless, at this point in time, engagement with my topic of choice was only made possible through online tools. Taking this topic further would likely require field research in Japan to overcome these issues.

Myopia or building bridges - analysis of the interviews The testimonies of all three participants go against the cliché of Japan as a society without activism.

All three can be considered examples of a new wave of youth and student-led movements, connected online to global networks of allies worldwide. All three also distanced themselves from the idea of a politically passive Japan, constructed both from within and outside the country. At the same time, a common point between all three participants was the importance they placed on their transcultural experiences in informing their activism and the way they perceived Japanese society, not without a certain sense of alienation and frustration. Part of this involved expressing agreement with the idea that Japan is a country where it is difficult to engage in activism, and where they receive a limited understanding of their activities from their peers.

All three of the participants cited international educational experiences (abroad or in international schools and universities in Japan) as a catalyst for their own activism and awareness of social issues.

Maya, having spent most of her life going to “regular Japanese schools” stated that coming to an international university and being exposed to new viewpoints “was sort of my changing point; if it wasn’t for that experience, I don’t think I would be in, um, Voice Up Japan.” Yui stated that going to university in the US was where she “truly had [her] feminist awakening.” Shiori cited a research project she had undertaken while enrolled in an international high school interviewing people about gender stereotypes as the reason why she wanted to get more involved with the issue herself.

All three thus stated, albeit in different ways, that transcultural experience can help the individual to see the society in which they live in a new and perhaps more critical light. Shiori suggested that the fact that most Japanese students don’t have much international experience may be part of the reason for what she perceives as their political passivity: “I think students who come from a different country to Japan, they notice how different it is, so I think um… maybe… that motivates them to take action, and it’s uh… on the other hand, Japanese students are always in Japan so they don’t know, they think that… what they are used to is the standard.”

Yui stated that within most of the protest groups she encounters, she perceives the majority of participants to have some sort of international experience: “they have been abroad and they have seen, uh, the differences, they have been thinking about... why can't Japan be better than it is now?”

She suggested that this is rooted in the fact that people with international experience feel less attached to their national identities, facilitating critical thinking about their own society. She

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contrasted this with the rise of far-right nationalists in Japan “who take any insult to the country; the nation of Japan as an insult to them, like themselves, as people. And, uh, I think that the activists are the exact opposite of this.”

This shows that international mobility can in itself be a trigger for “activist awakenings,” motivating an individual to take action about problems they start to perceive in their native or adopted societies.

While this was sometimes formulated in terms evoking the idea of the “emancipatory” West (Yui cites seeing the “confidence that women had in America” as one of her reasons for becoming involved), the participants emphasised the shift in perspective they gained from international mobility, beyond specific ideas of “the West.”

However, similar to Kelsky’s (2008) findings, these experiences also cause a sense of alienation from Japanese society. Both Yui and Maya expressed fairly strong negative attitudes about Japan in general. Maya cited this disillusionment as a reason why she tended to be “very drawn to Western culture when it comes to gender,” but also as another inciting factor why she wanted to start up her branch of Voice Up Japan. For Yui, her negative feelings towards Japan are mostly rooted in her experiences of being discriminated against as a “hidden minority,” being ethnically Chinese: “emotionally, I've never felt attached to Japan, because I had a very difficult kind of relationship with Japan, uh, growing up.” She also feels that this identity is a limiting factor in how public she can be with her own activism, referring to hate speech directed at Taiwanese-Japanese politician Murata Renhō as a deterrent for her own engagement.

Yui’s experiences among her fellow feminist friends are also reminiscent of Kelsky’s (2008) findings about certain groups of women feeling confined to one of two options: leave Japan or give up on a career. However, Yui gives a different spin on the quote: “leave Japan or run for office.” Once again, she feels that her identity marker as Chinese would hinder her in the latter endeavor. Nevertheless, this illustrates a difference between Kelsky’s findings about internationally mobile women aspiring for successful careers and internationally mobile women engaging in activism; while there is a fair sense of pessimism about Japanese society among both of these groups, activists like Yui retain a belief that it is possible to change it through political action.

To an extent, the interview subject participated in a discourse of Japan as “behind” Western countries when it comes to gender equality. Shiori stated that she “got really interested in gender because I noticed that in Japan, the gender equality is very… a bit lower, compared to the US.” Maya described how “there are so many more rules that confine girls in Japan.” Yui went so far as to say that Japan doesn’t have “the maturity as a society” to start discussing more complex issues on how certain norms may affect activist discourse. This is reminiscent of colonial discourses of the West as “more advanced,” an ideology which the participants otherwise pushed against. Maya and Shiori expressed that they believed the individualism encouraged in British and American culture, particularly education systems, was more conducive to activism. Maya cited Japanese social norms as something that makes young Japanese people less likely to engage in social movements: “there’s this total fundamental tendency to comply with what everyone else is doing.” All three participants agreed that

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the term “activist” is something most Japanese people would consider a negative term or at least something distant from their daily lives. This is in line with rhetoric emphasising the “conformist” nature of Japanese culture, something all three participants are actively going against. Effectively, the participants engaged in a practice of reinforcing a hierarchised boundary between “the West” and Japanese culture while simultaneously transgressing it themselves.

I sometimes found myself wanting to step out of my role as an interviewer and reject these ideas as they came up. When Yui expressed disappointment that there are no laws against forcibly outing someone’s LGBT identity at work, citing it as an example why Japan is especially dangerous to minorities, I was tempted to point out that such legislation is extremely rare worldwide and not something uniquely lacking in Japan. The impulse of the Western transnational researcher to emphasise the universality of certain conditions (such as discrimination) was something, I felt, was present during the interview. However, as Kelsky (2008) and Lunny (2019) point out, such claims to universality also play into ideas of the West as the norm.

The participants also reflected upon the complexities of cultural relativism when dealing with activism. Yui expressed frustration with what she perceived as the lack of critical thinking within relativist arguments.

I always have this one question in my mind, when I participate in activism, it's like, you know, there are so many people who tell me that "oh you know, like so and so, like this thing, for example, like honor killing is the culture, like, in India so we can't really like, it's shou ga nai…

I think they've given up on thinking, really… Yeah, it's like, okay, is hurting people your culture? I wouldn't be proud of that... and... in ancient China, binding feet of women was culture, but it literally crippled people, so we put a stop to that... so culture can be an evolving thing, it shouldn't stay the same way, it should be updated as we go, as language is…

She also pointed out how other people tended to portray her as imposing Western values, often in a derogatory way, like being called a “banana.” She reflected upon the difficulty of navigating the multilayered power dynamics of transcultural activism, as it is often characterised by the dominance of certain groups over others. She brought this up not only in relation to Western hegemony, but also “university-educated people as the norm, or white-collar as the norm... white people as the norm, middle-class as the norm.”

In contrast, Maya and Shiori had not been accused of “imposing Western values” by their work in Voice Up Japan to the same extent. They emphasised the positive responses they had received in response to their activism, including from the media. However, they did acknowledge the difficulty of translating “feminist English” (Lunny 2019) into a Japanese context, and vice versa. Maya cited one example: “toxic masculinity is not a word very well-known in Japan, and I think it is especially problematic in Japan, the enforced masculinity of Japanese men, so it’s very hard to convey it when you don’t have the word for it. I mean you can use the katakana but um, people won’t know what it

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means.” Katakana is the writing system used for loan words in Japanese, usually direct transliterations of English words. Katakana words are common when discussing feminism in Japanese - Maya pointed out that the word “feminism” has to be in katakana in Japanese. This superimposes a flavor of “foreign-ness” to words related to gender issues in Japan (Lunny 2019), which the participants all found to be a particular challenge.

As for how the participants behaved online in regards to their activism, Maya and Shiori stated that they both mainly followed and engaged with Western accounts.Yui said that she tries to “find people whose background is similar to mine, also, cross-cultural people” to engage with online, as she tends to find more common ground with them. Shiori pointed out that she would like to follow more Japanese accounts, but that she has difficulty finding Japanese influencers who speak out about political issues. All three use online tools as platforms for their transnational activism. Through engagement on Twitter, Yui managed to publish an article in a major British newspaper on cultural appropriation of kimono, in defence of local Japanese activists that she had managed to serve as an interlocutor for through social media. With her English language skills, she saw that “that's a gap I can fill.” This illustrates that while English and Western perspectives are dominant in the online world that the participants created for themselves in regards to activism, online tools also served as a platform to bridge gaps between groups who may not otherwise communicate. Yui saw her own transcultural position as a strength in this regard.

There were some indications that the participants were working under differing conditions in terms of the consequences they expected to face in response to their activist work. While all three participants testified of some degree of a lack of understanding of their activist engagements from their peers, Maya and Shiori cited that they had still received mostly positive reactions for their work in Voice Up Japan. Yui, meanwhile, avoided mentioning her going to protests or expressing political opinions at work for fear of losing her job. She also cited more instances of negative reactions, including derogatory comments online, often referring to her own status as a minority as something that her critics might latch on to. This may speak to the differing environments in which the participants operated. While Maya and Shiori have met with a certain amount of resistance (including from the university administration, which on occasion has refused to let them run their events), they are in an environment where engagement in these issues involves fewer risks, being focused in a university setting. Maya and Shiori are explicitly running a student branch, arguably under principles of feminism that may be more acceptable to a mainstream institution (Maya cited Emma Watson and the UN #HeForShe campaign as her “feminist role model”). Yui, meanwhile, has tended to participate in street protests more directly challenging the government (including the Chinese government in the case of solidarity protests with Hong Kong). The latter would naturally carry more risk than the former.

This, however, touches upon the issue of how the participants for this project were selected. The middle-class, university-centered “brand of activism” studied here is a result of my own positionality, and should not be considered representative of feminist movements in Japan as a whole. Crucially,

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international mobility is in itself a privilege, and not something accessible to everyone. Yui touched upon the possibility that there is a certain degree of disconnect between the activism of internationally mobile, online-focused people such as herself and older, more locally based activists: “especially with the issue of feminism, I see many older women that are at many protests and lead the changes, being in the forefront, very few people of my own age.” The grassroots feminist movement in Japan has been alive and well for decades (Lunny 2019), but these older participants may not receive the same international attention and media coverage that groups like Voice Up Japan may have.

The testimonies of the Yui, Maya, and Shiori nevertheless gave an indication that transcultural experiences can be one way among many in which an individual may come to start taking action for social causes. It is possible that such experiences may involve greater exposure to certain hegemonic discourses coded “Western” which, in turn, has ideological implications for activist work. Transcultural feminists in Japan have to navigate the challenge of disentangling these dynamics, down to their choice of writing system for certain words. At the same time, “transcultural skills,” such as the ability to code-switch between a Japanese-speaking and an English-speaking context, can also be an asset in activist work and serve to strengthen transnational connections. This, in turn, can help to fight the single story of a harmonious, politically passive Japan.

In future research, a fuller picture of activist groups in Japan would have to be painted through Japanese-language interviews with local groups. This exercise served to illustrate how issues of positionality may narrow the view of a given topic, much as I struggled to access the fuller pictures I glimpsed through my window in Tokyo. If the aim is to attain a wider view, methodological choices need to be made accordingly.

This essay was written for the class Research Design and Writing in the Social Sciences with Professor Nadège Ragaru.

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Bibliography Baril, A. , 2016. “Doctor, am I an Anglophone trapped in a Francophone body?”: an intersectional analysis of “trans-crip-t time” in ableist, cisnormative, anglonormative societies. Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies, 10(2), pp. 155–172.

Befu, Harumi (2001). The Hegemony of Homogeneity: An Anthropological Analysis of Nihonjinron, Melbourne: Trans-Pacific Press Chacko, Elizabeth (2004). ‘Positionality and praxis: fieldwork experiences in rural India’, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 25(1): 51–63 Deakin, H., & Wakefield, K. (2014). Skype interviewing: reflections of two PhD researchers. Qualitative Research, 14(5), 603–616.

Fine, M. ( 1994 ). Working the hyphens: Reinventing self and other in qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 70 – 82 ). Thousand Oaks, CA : Sage.

Hundle, A. K., Szeman, I., & Hoare, J. P. (2019). What is the Transnational in Transnational Feminist Research? Feminist Review, 121(1), 3–8.

Hirano, Keiji (2010). Legacy of 1960 protest movement lives on. The Japan Times, 11 June 2010.

Kingston, Jeff (2015). SEALDs: Students Slam Abe’s Assault on Japan’s Constitution. The Asia-Pacific Journal, Volume 13 (36) Number 1 Lunny, D. R. (2019). English Hegemony, Anglo privilege and the Promise of ‘Allo’lingual Citational Praxis in Transnational Feminisms Research. Feminist Review, 121(1), 66–80.

Matsubara, Junko (1989). Eigo dekimasu (I Can Speak English), Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū Minear, R. (1980). Orientalism and the Study of Japan. The Journal of Asian Studies, 39(3), 507-517 Mohanty, C.T. , 1984. Under Western eyes: feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. boundary 2, 12/13(3), pp. 333–358.

Reddy, Dashakti, Hollowell, Clare Lona Liong Charles Aresto, Nyabol Grace, Mängu Bande Joseph, Aleu Mayen Ker, Joseph, Lado, Jane & Kiden Mary (2019). Using feminist ‘reflexive practice’ to explore stress and well-being of local researchers in South Sudan, Gender & Development, 27:3, 555-571

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Ribbens, Jane. 1989. Interviewing – an “Unnatural Situation”? Women’s Studies International Forum, 12(6): 579-592.

Saito, Chiyo (1997). “What is Japanese feminism?” in Sandra Buckley (ed) Broken Silence: Voices of Japanese Feminism, Berkeley: University of California Press Scholte, J. A. ( 2014 ). A transculturalist path to democratic global cooperation. International Journal of Cultural Research, 14, 82 – 87 West, O. C., Yang, M. J., Wolfgang, J., Henesy, R., & Yoon, E. (2017). Highlighting the Challenges When Conducting Cross-National Studies: Use of Transcultural Theory. Journal of Counseling & Development, 95(4), 457–464 Willis, David Blake and Murphy-Shigematsu, Stephen (2008). Transcultural Japan: Metamorphosis in the cultural borderlands and beyond. In Transcultural Japan: At the Borderlands of Race, Gender, and identity. New York: Routledge

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Sexual Violence as a Weapon of War? The Case of Abu Ghraib This paper looks at conflict-related sexual violence and critically evaluates the commonly accepted explanation for it as a ‘Weapon of War’. It then explores whether sexual violence committed by US personnel in the detention center in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, can be convincingly explained by that approach.

Content Warning: Sexual Violence, Assault Sexual violence has always been a part of warfare to punish, destroy and tear enemy communities apart. Historically, it can be traced back to the Bible, be found in Greek mythology and the Viking age.

In the 20th century, conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) was committed by Japanese forces in Nanking, by German, US, and Russian soldiers during The Second World War and by both sides in the Vietnam War (Maier 2011).

its systematic and widespread use during the civil wars in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Rwandan Genocide. The work of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and for Rwanda (ICTR) eventually led to the inclusion of sexual violence as a Crime against Humanity (Article 7) and a War Crime (Article 8) in the Rome Statute (Maier 2011). In international law, CRSV can also constitute an act of genocide when indented to prevent the reproduction of other ethnic or religious communities through sexual mutilation or sterilization (ICRC 2016). In 2008, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1820, declaring that “rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity or a constitutive act with respect to genocide” and calling for preventive measures against sexual violence in armed conflict (UNSC 2008).

Written by Maximilian Freundlieb

Despite its continued occurrence with armed conflicts, CRSV received little international attention until

Typology of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence The terms rape and sexual violence are often used interchangeably in contributions to the discourse.

To understand specific dynamics in conflict areas and explore the motivation of their perpetrators, it is important to introduce a typology of the phenomenon. Sexual violence is used as an umbrella term to describe acts of “sexual nature imposed by force, or coercion, such as that caused by fear of violence, duress, detentions, psychological oppression or abuse of power directed against any victim – man, women, boy or girl.” (ICRC 2016) Taking advantage of the victim’s inability to express dissent in coercive circumstances also constitutes a type of coercion. The Report of the UN Secretary-General on ConflictRelated Sexual Violence and the Rome Statute have identified the following manifestations of CRSV: rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, enforced sterilization, forced marriage and any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity (UN Secretary-General 2018). It is important to notice that rape also includes penetrating the victim with foreign objects such

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as (broken) glass bottles, nails, stones, and knives, demonstrating that CRSV is often rather violent than sexual (Maciejcak 2013). CRSV often appears together with other forms of violence such as killings, looting or recruitment of child soldiers (ICRC 2016).

Rape as a Weapon of War The increase of international attention to CRSV in the 1990s was accompanied by a shift in thinking about gender and sexual violence in armed conflict. Sexual violence had so far been understood as a by-product of conflict, happen incidentally and randomly and arising from male sexual urges (Buss 2009). Building on the seminal book ‘Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape’ by Susan Brownmiller, CRSV began to be understood as a logical, coordinated, systemic, targeted and highly effective part of warfare, an ordinance next to propaganda or bullets used by armed forces to achieve larger strategic objectives (Gottschall 2004).

CRSV is logical in the sense that it takes advantage of local social or cultural vulnerabilities of the enemy’s community in the pursuit of victory (Maciejcak 2013). Although it is often difficult to prove explicit ‘rape-orders’ from higher military command, victims’ testimonies from the DRC have shown that the rape of girls and women was conducted in a very coordinated, structured and assumingly preplanned process (Maedl 2011). CRSV is often described as systemic, and although it is not found to the same extent in different conflicts, experiences from Bosnia, Rwanda, Congo, and South Sudan support that claim. It is targeted in the sense that it specifically attacks those members of communities, whose social status multiplies the disastrous impact on the entire community, for example, if a chief is forced to rape his mother in front of the entire community (Dr. Denis Mukwege Foundation 2019). And lastly, CRSV is brutally effective and efficient since it provides cheaper means than bullets to cause crushing and long-lasting destruction in targeted populations (Maciejcak 2013).

The new understanding showed that CSRV was a sexual expression of violence instead of an aggressive expression of sexuality (Seifert 1994). It highlighted that men and women are both perpetrators and victims and that the issue affects individuals of all ages. The recent UNHCR Report “We Keep it in our Heart” documented cases of sexual violence during the Syrian Conflict against victims as young as 10 and as old as 80 years. CRSV creates lasting trauma for post-conflict societies where psychological consequences on the personal and social identity of the victim often outlive those of other kinds of physical violence (Russell 2007).

The idea of sexual violence as a ‘weapon of war’ is now commonly accepted by the international public sector (cf. UN (UN Secretary-General 2018), Amnesty International (Amnesty International 2004)), academia (cf. Buss (Buss 2009), Kirby (Kirby 2013), Farwell (Farwell 2004)) and the media (cf. New York Times (Drakulic 2008), BBC (Smith-Spark 2004)) and has proven useful in providing explanations for the rape camps in former Yugoslavia (Sharlach 2000) and the Rwandan Genocide (Russell-Brown 2003).

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Criticism of the ‘Rape as a Weapon of War’ Narrative Several academic contributions argue for a nuanced assessment of the ‘Weapon of War’ (WoW) framework. Baat and Stern deconstruct the implicit assumption of the approach, mainly strategicness, gender, culpability, and avoidability, and conclude that “despite its teleological seduction and political importance, the discourse [...] remains unstable and its promise of deliverance precarious” (Baaz and Stern 2013). Feminist scholars such as Kelly criticize the inherent distinction of the approach between ‘normal’ rape in peacetimes and ‘tactical’ rape in times of war. Alternatively, they propose a continuum understanding to conceptualize sexual violence which could highlight the links between armed conflict, gender, and militarism in day-to-day life and ‘high’ politics (Sjoberg and Via 2010). Understanding CRSV as distinct from sexual violence in times of ‘peace’ also ignores the fact that often ‘peace’ is negotiated on a patriarchal bargain (Prügl 2019). Other scholars have argued that understanding CRSV through a tactical lens often oversimplifies and even exploits the complex dynamics at play and neglects sociocultural context (Baaz and Stern 2009). Lastly, the WoW approach ‘securitizes’ sexual violence and thereby pushes the issue from a socio-cultural and political context into the arena of security threats.

This, in turn, gives power and responsibilities to security forces, which may use the new positions of power for their personal interests (Kirby 2015). Kirby explores cases which “he interprets as evidence of the failing securitization of CSRV, such as the United Nations’ peacekeeping troops’ inability to stop CRSV in eastern Congo or the decreasing interest in the UK’s Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative” (Koos 2017).

Function of CRSV Attempts to explain the function of CRSV often take five hypotheses put forward by Seifert as a starting point (Seifert 1994). Firstly, CRSV is used as a reward for victorious soldiers and represents a “rule of war”. The sexual violence committed by US, Russian and German soldiers in conquered territories during World War II can be seen in this light. This type of CRSV, nearly always manifesting itself in acts of rape, was generally permitted by commanders to their soldiers to boost morale and was nearly exclusively directed against women and girls (BMJ 2010).

Secondly, CRSV serves as a communication channel between men. Based on 200 interviews with former combatants and non-combatants, Cohen concludes that sexual violence committed in groups (‘gang-rape’) is thought to serve an essential intragroup function by solidifying the bond and loyalty among soldiers on the same side (Cohen 2010). This plays a special role in the case of forcibly recruited fighters, whose relationships are marked by a high level of mistrust and fear (Cohen 2013). Making these fighters witnesses and culprits to the crimes of CRSV is thought to overcome these hostile feelings (Isikozlu and Millard 2010). Furthermore, CRSV against women is used to communicate with male soldiers on the other side, demonstrating their inability to fulfil their duty as male members of patriarchal societies to protect women (Isikozlu and Millard 2010).

Thirdly, Seifert suggests that CRSV is used to destroy the social cohesion of the enemy’s population.

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In such cases, members of the targeted community are forced to commit sexual violence against each other. One common scenario is that men are forced to rape their mothers, who represent the social tie in families and communities (Isikozlu and Millard 2010). In homophobe societies, men are coerced into sexual acts with other men, representing the idea of “homosexualization” (Sivakumaran 2007). When used with this purpose, CRSV tears down traditional patterns of authority, destroys social cohesion and demoralizes and destabilizes communities for decades to come (Dr. Denis Mukwege Foundation 2019).

Seifert’s fourth hypothesis reflects popular thinking in older feminist theory, expressing the idea that sexual violence “is an expression of deeply ingrained hatred of women, which manifests in extreme situations” (Isikozlu and Millard 2010:19). However, this argument has largely been rejected since it cannot explain male victims, female perpetrators, and acts of sexual violence within the same gender (Carpenter 2006).

Fifthly, Seifert turns to CRSV in the context of genocide, used to definitely terminate an ethnic or religious community. Here, sexual violence takes the form of enforced sterilization, forced pregnancy by which the ‘bloodline of the community is being contaminated’, forced abortion or the deliberate spread of HIV. In international law, CRSV can constitute an act of genocide (‘genocidal rape’) (RussellBrown 2003). The conflict in Rwanda and the Bangladesh Liberation War are historical examples of that hypothesis.

Two additional reasons have been identified since the work of Seifert. The first is the use of sexual violence against detainees in the context of torture. CRSV is either committed directly against inmates by sexually abusing them or forcing them to perform sexual acts in violation of their values, or indirectly against female relatives of inmates. It is generally considered a method of last resort to force confessions or collect information (Einolf 2018).

Lastly, CRSV can serve economic interests. In areas with lootable resources, sexual violence might be used to clear out the population from an area used for illegal exploitation, and terrorize and demoralize local communities to deter them from obstructing these activities (Weinstein 2006). This continues to happen in ongoing conflicts in the DRC(Maedl 2011). CRSV fostering economic interests also includes selling women or girls into sexual slavery or forced marriages to raise revenues for armed groups. The slave trade of Yazidi women by Daesh in Northern Iraq is one present example that received a lot of international attention (Otten 2017).

Contributing Factors to CRSV Assuming that CRSV is ubiquitous in every armed conflict is a misconception as recent research has documented significant variations in the perpetration of CRSV not only in different conflict situations but also within armed groups (Kelly 2010). While Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone have experienced very high levels of CRSV, El Salvador and the Israel-Palestine conflicts have not (Kelly 2010). Extensive research has been conducted to identify factors that explain the high occurrences of CRSV (Koos 2017). Due to the limited scope of this paper, only key factors and

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misconceptions will be explored.

Geographical Factors The high level of CRSV in the conflicts in South Sudan, the DRC (dubbed the ‘rape capital of the world’), Liberia and Sierra Leone have created the public impression that wartime rape is a uniquely SubSahara African phenomenon. However, data from the US State Department shows that “only” ten out of the twenty-eight (36%) conflicts in the region during the period 1980-2009 have shown a high prevalence of CRSV, against four out of nine (44%) in Eastern Europe (Cohen, Hoover Green, and Wood 2013). New data from the same source points to high levels of CRSV in most regions of the world (Cohen et al. 2013). The small number of cases in certain regions makes global comparisons less significant, but the conclusions can be drawn that CRSV is a global instead of a regional phenomenon.

Perpetrators The image of undisciplined and ruthless rebels created the impression that CRSV is primarily perpetrated by non-state actors and only to a significantly lesser extent by well-trained, well-equipped and well-paid state forces. While so far no global study on the character of perpetrators of CRSV has been conducted, a recent report on African conflicts between 2000-2009 by PRIO shows that 64% of government actors involved in the conflict were reported for having committed sexual violence, while only 31% of rebel groups and 29% of militias (Cohen and Nordås 2014). A further observation has been that the most common use of CRSV by state actors is torture, their victims are therefore most often detainees (Cohen et al. 2013).

Contextual Conditions The absence of the rule of law, allowing for impunity, weakened state institutions, and gender inequalities have been identified as making sexual violence more likely in the context of armed conflict (Koos 2017). However, there is a clear endogeneity problem, since all these factors have also been identified as contributing to political violence and armed conflict. Cohen conducted cross-national research on the importance of societal norms and found partial support for the idea that weak states only lead to a high level of CRSV if accompanied by a breakdown of society and societal norms (Cohen 2013). To assess the impact of normalized and systematic gender discrimination before the war, Davies and True used the OECD Indices for Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) to “to trace and intercept the moment where gender discrimination and gendered violence were normalized in a society to such an extent that, in situations of civil unrest and political violence, it becomes logical and instrumental to direct sexual and gender-based violence against political opponents” (Davies and True 2015:502).

Case Study: Abu Ghraib Hitherto, the paper has critically evaluated the WoW narrative, put forward a typology of sexual violence and evaluated empirical evidence of factors contributing to CRSV. It now turns to the example of Abu Ghraib and determined whether that case fits the dominant WoW narrative.

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Background In May 2004, the US channel CBS News published photographs portraying acts of torture including sexual violence committed by personnel of the US Army and the CIA against Iraqi detainees in the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq. The publications caused an international uproar and led to the claims that American forces were not better than Saddam Hussein’s jailers who had previously used the prison (Bowden 2004). According to a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross, 70-80 percent of the 3800 inhabitants of the detention center were innocent Iraqi citizens, mistakenly detained (Hilal 2017).

The acts of torture shown in the images took place in the prison cells 1A and 1B, and were targeted against detainees believed to have sensitive information about future attacks on US troops or the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein (Jehl and Schmitt 2004). In response to the images, the US government and the US Army conducted five investigations into the treatment of the detainees.

The Taguba Report revealed the following acts of sexual and non-sexual abuse (Taguba 2004): Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees; Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing; Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time; Forcing naked male detainees to wear women’s underwear; Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped; Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them; Positioning a naked detainee on an MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture; Writing “I am a Rapest” (sic) on the leg of a detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old fellow detainee, and then photographing him naked; Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee’s neck and having a female Soldier pose for a picture; A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee; Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees.

In addition, there were incidents when Iraqi prisoners were forced to perform oral sex on each other, one incident when an American-Egyptian translator raped an Iraqi teenage boy and several incidents when prisoners were sexually assaulted with foreign objects such as truncheons. After the publication of the Taguba Report, the US Army conducted over 30 criminal investigations into alleged misconduct

by US personnel during Operation Iraqi Freedom and the subsequent Operation Enduring Freedom, which resulted in the court-martial and conviction of eleven soldiers, three of them women (CNN 2019).

Sexual violence is often believed to be an issue of armed forces from societies with lower human rights records, specifically women’s rights. The case of Abu Ghraib showed that CRSV is applied by well-

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trained soldiers from free and democratic societies as well. It furthermore highlighted that CRSV targets male victims as well, an aspect often neglected in academic studies. And it shows that sexual violence is also committed actively by women, which betrays “the essentialist notions that women – as compassionate, pure, givers of life – were not capable of such vulgarity and cruelty” (Bond 2013:3).

Does Abu Ghraib fit the Weapon of War Narrative?

As highlighted above, WoW understands CRSV as an expression of violence rather than sexuality.

Looking at the instances of sexual violence in Abu Ghraib, only the cases of rape of the female detainees and the Iraqi boy could be understood as satisfying sexual needs of the perpetrators. All other cases show clear patterns of violence (attaching electrical wires to male genitalia) and degradation (forcing to wear women’s underwear), often forcing detainees to abuse each other, but do not seem to arise from sexual instincts of the perpetrators. The idea of sexual violence instead of violent sexuality can, therefore, be confirmed in the case of Abu Ghraib.

Furthermore, CRSV is described as a logical, coordinated, systemic and targeted part of warfare to achieve larger strategic interests. The case in Abu Ghraib is logical in the sense that US personnel took advantage of the power imbalance between guards and detainees. In addition, US personnel actively exploited Iraqi traditional norms and gender roles by forcing detainees to perform sexual acts to each other (‘homosexualization’) or wear female underwear.

Assessing the level of coordination of CRSV in Abu Ghraib is difficult as relevant information is withheld by the US government, claiming confidentiality. However, transcripts from the military court hearings show that torture techniques used at the prison were “either endorsed or encouraged high up the military chain of command” and complaints by five military policemen over the acts of abuse were disregarded (Gumbel 2004). Human Rights Watch revealed orders from intelligence officials to military police personnel to strip victims naked and to shackle them before interrogations (Human Rights Watch 2004). Scholar Johanna Bond concluded that although “we may never know with certainty, it is possible - indeed likely - that military elites envisioned a specific role for women at Abu Ghraib, one in which women were asked or ordered to use sexuality as a means to humiliate male Iraqi prisoners” (Bond 2013:4). This information clearly refutes the position put forward by the US government stating that the atrocities were the work of individuals acting without orders. Furthermore, some acts of sexual violence, such as attaching electronic wires to male genitalia or forcing naked detainees to climb on each other, require a certain level of coordination. In the first example, the necessary infrastructure and tools need to be organized before sexual violence can occur while in the second, all detainees need to be brought to the same location. This shows that the atrocities did not happen randomly but required some level of coordination. Overall, one can conclude that while the scale and scope of CRSV in Abu Ghraib might not have been the result of direct military orders, a permissive attitude by higher command allowed for these acts to take place.

The question of systematicity raised political discussion around the globe. The Bush administration

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rejected the idea that these actions were part of a broader US policy and denounced the cases as the work of few ‘bad apples’ (Bond 2013). However, Human Rights Watch and the International Committee of the Red Cross have documented cases of similar treatment in numerous other locations in Iraq and Afghanistan starting in 2002 (Human Rights Watch 2004). HRW, therefore, concluded that “this pattern of abuse did not result from the acts of individual soldiers who broke the rules. It resulted from decisions made by the Bush administration to bend, ignore, or cast rules aside.” (Human Rights Watch 2004:1) As confidential US documents about the Iraq War will be released the earliest in 2033 according to the Thirty-Year Rule, the question of systematicity will be answered then. Taking into consideration the significant amount of cases documented by the five US investigations and human rights organizations during the Iraq and Afghanistan War and the seemingly additional number of publicly unknown cases, a systematic pattern of CRSV by US personnel in Iraq seems likely.

Abu Ghraib fulfills the criteria of ‘targetness’ in the sense that, although it is assumed that most detainees were actually innocent and mistakenly detained, the practices in the cells 1A and 1B were specifically targeting “security detainees”, separated from the rest of the detainees because of their suspected knowledge about attacks on US personnel.

Exploring the idea of strategic objectives, the sexual violence in Abu Ghraib appears to have served the function of torture to gain sensitive information at first sight. After all, prison cells 1A and 1B were reserved for detainees believed to have valuable knowledge for the coalition’s activities. In that light, CRSV did serve strategic objectives. However, it was a well-known fact within the higher military command that the interrogation methods were unable to produce satisfying intelligence about the hideout of Saddam Hussein or specific information about the leadership of the Iraqi insurgency (Jehl and Schmitt 2004). It seems likely that the perpetrators of sexual violence were aware of that ineffectiveness (and counterproductivity). This poses the question of why sexual violence was continued even while failing to fulfill strategic objectives and not replaced by new practices.

Furthermore, private photos from US personnel depicting cheerful perpetrators give rise to the impression that committing sexual violence did also serve the purpose of entertainment or personal amusement. Lastly, not all US personnel participated in the atrocities, and some individuals even voiced their opposition in complaints to higher command. Together, these aspect highlights that CRSV in Abu Ghraib cannot only be explained by strategic objectives, but that its type, scope, and scape required an intrinsic motivation on the side of the perpetrators.

Conclusion This paper has presented the discourse and criticism around CRSV as a ‘Weapon of War’ and explored the case of Abu Ghraib. Nearly all documented acts of CRSV in Abu Ghraib are expressions of sexualized violence instead of violent sexuality and can therefore not be convincingly explained by

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sexual drives on the side of the perpetrators. Furthermore, the paper found that although fulfilling the criteria of a logical, coordinated, systemic and targeted ordinance of warfare, the occurrences in Abu Ghraib cannot be explained convincingly by the ‘Weapon of War’ narrative due to the lack of strategicness. To find a more satisfying explanation for CRSV in Abu Ghraib, it is worth looking at academic studies on the actions of German soldiers during the Second World War. Detailed research on the Police Battalion 101 and its atrocities in the district of Lublin in Poland has been conducted by Christopher Browning (Browning 2001). He described the actions of a German Army official, who sought to entertain himself before assassinating Polish Jews: “Even before the shooting began, First Lieutenant Gnade had personally picked out some twenty to twenty-five elderly Jews. They were exclusively men with full beards. Gnade made the old men crawl on the ground in the area before the grave. Before he gave them the order to crawl, they had to undress.” (Browning 2001:83) The similarities to Abu Ghraib are apparent. Browning attempts to answer the question of how ordinary men turned into cold murderers by proposing that many, though not all, individuals when faced with high levels of stress and fear blindly follow orders, even if they stand in stark contrast to their previous lives and values. But that explanation does not suffice, as soldiers both in Abu Ghraib and in Lublin committed atrocities beyond of what was required for achieving strategic objectives.

Psychologist Philip Zimbardo, who participated in the Stanford Prison Experiment, argues for the transformation of ordinary people into perpetrators of evil under specific circumstances (Wargo 2006; Zimbardo 2008). He shows that sufficiently powerful situations “will undercut empathy, altruism, and morality and get ordinary people, even good, people, to be seduced into doing really bad things” (Zetter 2008). Abu Ghraib was clearly a situation of high stress and high pressure which might have eliminated the perpetrators’ sense of altruism, empathy, and morality. CRSV, while officially serving strategic objectives, became the expression of human instincts seeking amusements, which were no longer restricted by moral barriers. This hypothesis also explains the cheerful smiles of the perpetrators shown on the images attached in the annex. Contrary to the WoW narrative, individuals stopped acting rationally and executing commands and began acting out their emotions. External commands were replaced by internal impulses as drivers of behavior. In that sense, the thesis resembles the explanation of CRSV as a manifestation of sexual urges but differs from it by considering other impulses.

The hypothesis requires thorough research before it can provide a plausible explanation for the atrocities at Abu Ghraib. But this paper does show that the WoW narrative cannot provide a universal explanation for CRSV post-1990.

This essay was written for the class Economics of Conflict with Professor Petros Sekeris.

CONTENT WARNING: THE FOLLOWING PAGES CONTAIN DISTURBING PHOTOGRAPHS

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Annex Photography I:Â U.S. soldiers stand behind a pyramid of naked Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, Iraq, in this undated photo. The soldier in back has been identified as Charles A. Graner, 35, of the 372nd Military Police Company.

Photography II: In this undated photo obtained by ABC News from Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq, Army Spc. Sabrina Harman of the 372nd Military Police Company poses with the body of a dead Iraqi man packed in ice.

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Photography III: Spc. Lynndie England, 21, points to a hooded and naked prisoner at Abu Ghraib.

Source: CBS/60 Minutes II. ‘Prisoner Photos’. CBS News, 28 April 2004. www.cbsnews.com/pictures/prisoner-photos/.

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Structure and Agency in the 2019 Hong Kong protests The analysis of politics is, like its subject matter, highly contested. In our class of advanced political analysis with professor Colin Hay, we learned about how to use theory and metatheory in the analysis of political systems. In this essay, we will use the structure and agency framework and evaluate its merits, limitations, relevance and applicability through the example of the 2019 Hong Kong protests.

The structure-agency framework has become increasingly influential in explaining social and political phenomena. Even though structure and agency are two analytically distinct approaches, many authors consider the framework a useful tool to understand outcomes. According to Hay (Hay, 2002), structure refers to the context and setting within which social, political and economic events occur and acquire meaning. Agency refers to action and political conduct; it can be defined as the ability or capacity of an actor to act consciously and to attempt to realise his or her intentions.

understand modern social movements in the case of the 2019 Hong Kong protests. Firstly, we will explore how the agential perspective can explain the movement. Then, we will add the structural perspective and offer a more comprehensive analysis. Thirdly, we will examine the interplay between the two perspectives by focusing on a specific case: Carrie Lam’s leaked transcript. Lastly, the limitations of using a combined approach will be discussed.

The ongoing protest in Hong Kong has erupted to widespread violence, social unrest and even deaths.

The demonstration was initially aimed to oppose the introduction of the extradition bill, a mechanism for the transfer of fugitives to Taiwan, Macau and Mainland China, which are excluded in existing laws

Written by Jeremy Ho Yan Ha

In this essay, we will investigate how structure and agency act as a complementary conceptual tools to

(Chugani, 2020).

Agential perspective on the protest of Hong Kong To understand the causes of the event, many have solely focused on the agential perspective by highlighting the capacity of individuals. They put the blame on Carrie Lam’s ‘heartless’ (Lhatoo, 2020), ‘stubborn’ and ‘deeply unpopular’ (Zhao and Su, 2020) administration, and that she tried to ‘push ahead’ the extradition bill and evoke other controversial measures such as the Emergency Regulations Ordinance, or commonly known as the ‘mask ban.’ The agential perspective focuses on Lam’s reluctance and slow response to popular demands, thus escalating public outrage and discontent.

Analysis often highlights Lam’s behaviour in 2019 which explains all the chaos and violence. Thus, the perspective has a tendency to concentrate on a limited timeframe. A newspaper commenter notes, ‘Lam is the wrong person to be leading Hong Kong now. She could have solved the problem weeks

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ago… and hurt no one… except maybe her own pride.’ However, agents can be individuals or collectives. Another major analytical focus is on how young people can act as a collective agent mobilising themselves during the whole manifestation. The protesters’ action are seen as an attempt to change the current social structure. ‘Students and university-educated young people are playing central roles in the protests.’ (Redden, 2020) One commentary even focus entirely on the dissent account of a 11-year old secondary school protester (Khan, Wang and Yoon, 2020) and claiming that it is their ‘extreme youthfulness’ which fuelled the movement. Within the analysis of one agent, there can be many different angles. When analysing the protesters’ intentions, while some note that they are too ‘radical’ (Hui, 2019) and ‘impulsive’, others focus on justifying their violent actions: ‘it is because justice has not been served.’ (Yeung, 2019) This narrative emphasizes on the explanation behind the agent’s seemingly irrational action, and that only through disrupting the daily normal lives could voices be heard. Some sources only depict protesters being victimised and abused by the police (Kuo, 2019). All in all, the agential perspective illustrates the behaviour of Lam and the conduct and intentions of young protesters and how it shapes the course of events. Even though analysis can be made through multiple angles, the agential perspective is not enough to give a comprehensive analysis.

A need to consider both the structure and agential perspective?

We also need to use the structural perspective by looking into the historical, political and sociological structure of Hong Kong and their effect on the manifestation. In the former British colony, housing problems (Liu, 2019) and economic inequality are some of the background grievances. Rising anti-China sentiment (Brennan, 2019) and the unique Hong Kong identity (Kao, 2019) also serve as a backdrop of the protest that has erupted. These structural factors are beyond specific agent’s control. However, we should note that the structural perspective only serves as an important condition to the final social discontent. Therefore, the structure- agency framework must be used together as a pair.

Another structural perspective we can take note of is the political system of Hong Kong. Since the Basic Law of Hong Kong safeguards the freedom of expression and assembly, it provides an opportunity for protesters to voice their discontent on the streets. Coupled with historical precedents of social mobilisation, it facilitates the initiation and development of the protest. Nonetheless, the political structure also presents a limitation to ‘freedom’: Hongkongers do not have universal suffrage for the executive branch. At the same time, separation of power prevents the government from directly addressing the 5 demands. For example, the executive branch cannot release all the arrested protesters and dissolve the legislative council because it is restricted by an independent judiciary (Niewenhuis, 2019). Therefore, the structural perspective presents both an opportunity and constraint for the movement.

The interaction between structure and agency: a leaked transcript of Carrie Lam Perhaps the most interesting manifestation of the interplay between structure and agency can be shown through a leaked recording of Lam with a group of businesspeople in what she believed was a

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closed door meeting. Lam discussed her options and said that she ‘has to serve two masters by design’: the people of Hong Kong and the Chinese government.

Different perspectives arise after the event and it reshuffles the dynamics between structure and agency. Previously, from an agential perspective, analysts focus on Lam’s role as a goal- maximising human agent and that the current political structure are under her control. Therefore, they argue that she does have the power to make changes and interpret such statements as an excuse for personal inaction. However, after the release of the transcript, this agential perspective is now forced to reconsider the limits to Lam’s power and a bigger structural factor - the political situation of Hong Kong in relation to China. The transcript is a breakaway from the Lam’s traditional image of being an autonomous agent and people begin to acknowledge that she is probably just part of a larger structure: the authoritarian Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Lam is merely a ‘Beijing puppet.’ (GrahamHarrison, 2019) Lam’s capacity to act as Chief Executive is therefore limited regardless of what she personally wants to achieve. As the current political structure restricts the agent’s power, Lam may not be able to freely resign or grant amnesty to the protesters. Thus the agential perspective has faced a more 'structural- centred’ interpretation.

On the other hand, previous structural perspective claims that the socio-historical context, and limitations to the current political system play a prominent role in escalating the protest. Institutions are ontologically primitive and Lam is viewed as merely being constituted by them. The structural perspective acknowledges Beijing’s ‘invisible hands’ and its attempt to take further control of the semiautonomous city. Moreover, the structural perspective brings the role of the chief executive in question: no matter who the chief executive is, the structure of the government may always remain the same. The leaders of Hong Kong do not have the capacity to act independently. By using the structural perspective here, one may exonerate Lam and her perceived ‘stubbornness’ because it is the prevailing institutions that determine her behaviour which ultimately leads to the 2019 protest. Nonetheless, the leaked transcript now presents a more ‘agent- centred’ interpretation: this is the first time Lam has been given a voice of her own. The nature of the transcript, coming from a closed door meeting, showcases Lam’s own will and autonomy as an agent. Before, she has only been seen as a part of a larger structure, now we are given insights to her potential beliefs. Especially when she said, ‘‘if I have a choice, the first thing is to quit.’ Her agential power challenges a traditional structural perspective.

Therefore, the interaction between the structure-agency framework can provide multi-layered political analysis and it acts as a guide to a more comprehensive understanding.

Limitations to the structure-agency framework While the structure-agency framework can be used to analyse particular political events and provide an informed analysis, the framework has three limitations. Firstly, the framework may not be able to handle larger scale analysis. With the analysis of the 2019 Hong Kong protest, it left me questioning: how much power does the Chief Executive of Hong Kong hold? What are the intentions of the CCP? What do private corporations want? How far down history should we focus on? Should the United

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Kingdom be involved in the agential perspective? How about the US Congress since it has recently passed the Human Rights and Democracy Act of Hong Kong (Cheng, 2019). The protest also inspired solidarity rallies from all around the world: from New York, Berlin, to Tokyo; how should we analyse them? Should we include other factors such as religion in the structural perspective? The 2019 Hong Kong protest involves numerous agents and structures and it is difficult to have an exhaustive and indepth framework that includes all the stakeholders. Therefore, the structure-agency framework may not be sufficient to explain macro socio-political phenomena. It is rather more of a useful tool for analysing localised and micro tensions.

The second limitation is the ambiguous boundaries between structure and agency. One prominent example is social media’s role in escalating tensions in the protest. While the structural perspective may see social media as a platform for different opinions and voices; the agential perspective sees it as a tool for different agents to mobilise themselves during the movement. On social media, the number of agents is infinite. Hence, social media may not entirely belong to one specific perspective within the structure-agency framework. Another example is the government of Hong Kong. One may question if they are merely civil servants under a constrained political system (structural perspective) or a group of people making ‘bad decisions’ (agential perspective). When analysing political events, certain factors are interchangeable between the structural and agential perspective. Therefore the boundaries between structure-agency framework may not be definitive, which may render analysis difficult and subjective.

Thirdly, some structure and agential factors cannot be considered theoretically neutral. Sources can be polarised as there is a political dimension to the structure-agency framework. For example, within press media, journalists may quote from different chants. An ‘agent- centred’ source may focus on chants such as ‘go extradite yourself, Carrie!’ (Pomfret, 2019), putting the blame on Lam. While a ‘structural-centred’ source emphasizes on other chants related to the societal context like, ‘liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our time.’ (Cheng, 2019) Chinese state media, on the other hand, depicts a completely different picture and claims that there are terrorists in the city backed by Americans (Griffiths, 2019). Different standards of explanations are invoked by different authors due to their ontological beliefs. According to Hay, ‘specific blend of factors we choose to appeal to will reflect the analytical questions we pose of the contexts which interest us.’ Perspectives are motivated by larger political beliefs and bias rather than neutral analytical standpoints. Consequently, some may exploit the framework and use it to exert their own personal opinions.

In conclusion, the structure-agency framework should be seen as a complementary pair of concepts for socio-political analysis as it can offer a comprehensive and multi-layered interpretation. As gleaned from the analysis of the 2019 Hong Kong protest, a pure agential perspective is not sufficient and the protests can be better explained by a contextual, structural perspective. We can also see that structure and agency at times come to interact with each other. However, the framework has its limits as factors for larger scale events become infinite and the framework may not be able to give an entirely objective analysis.

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This essay was written for the class Advanced Political Analysis with Professor Colin Hay.

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