This manuscript represents the first extensive documentation of the political and personal experiences of Hazara women in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, with a particular focus on the impact of donor funding in conditioning minority women’s agency and social importance. The Hazara are a uniquely vulnerable community due to their Shiite and Mongolian background, making them distinct from the dominant Pashtun, and an ethnicity that is more often than not likely to suffer in the ethnic fall-out from any peace process. Consequently, a deeper exploration of the intersectional identities of Hazara women is an important contribution to the study of the efficacy and substance of any attempts at gender empowerment by local officials and foreign donors. This paper embraces a multi-method approach in investigating this topic, including an auto-ethnographic narrative complemented by structured focused interviews with 40 male and female Hazara elites in both diasporic and local communities, probing their understanding of women’s current vs. historical status. In particular, I use content analysis to systematically track how concepts related to gender, pluralism, and women’s rights intersect across male and female elite subjects and compare these data to the current discourse on women across the Afghan constitution, local news, and social media, as well as donor reports.
Presentation deriving from special studies with Bozena Welborne, assistant professor of government.