This project addresses the construction of Afghan women in German print media from 11 September 2001 throughout the original ISAF mandate until 2014. Afghan women have time and again served as symbols in the War on Terror, the defining military conflict of our century to date, and have been utilized in a variety of contexts by a variety of persons, be they politicians, celebrities, news anchors, or journalists. This makes it worthwhile to afford their constructions in major news outlets a closer look. For this project, print media in the form of newspapers and news magazines have been selected as primary sources. Thus far, there is no large-scale, comprehensive study on this topic, particularly regarding a German context. Further, the existing academic literature – which is predominantly Anglophone and implicitly focused on the United States – suggests a uniformity of constructions across the Western world, focusing extensively on Orientalism and the veil as well as Afghan women in a role of victimhood vis-à-vis the Taliban. Investigating the way in which Afghan women are constructed in German print media post 9/11 and testing these assumptions and trends, this project has found that Afghan women are constructed in complex and heterogenous ways in the German print media during the time of the original ISAF mandate, showcasing constructions that complicate constructions of victimhood and at times display noteworthy levels of agency. Indeed, even within the German print media, deviations in construction according to the political leanings of the source, the source’s format, as well as the sex of the article’s author have been shown to be factors that need to be considered. Further, results indicate that Orientalist depictions, for example through descriptions of the veil, as well as Afghan women’s constructions along lines of victimhood are not as prominent as may have been expected from previous publications and furthermore are by no means static but indeed shift over the time of the engagement. These results have been obtained through a mixed-methods, constructivist approach following Ruth Wodak’s Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) to the extent that a larger scale of sources permits. Furthermore, a codebook has been utilized. The liberal Süddeutsche Zeitung and the conservative Die Welt, both leading national daily newspapers, as well as the left-liberal Der Spiegel and the conservative Focus, both renowned German news magazines, represent the German print media for this project.
Nameless victims? Constructing Afghan women in German print media post 9/11
Gundlach, I. (Author). 1 Apr 2021
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis › Doctor of Philosophy