Fixers, Fieldwork, and Precarity
The Postcoloniality of Western Fieldwork on Isis in Kurdistan
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4931707 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Dastan Jasim (0000-0002-4158-276X, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 123 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 755-777 |
| Publication date | 2024-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | South Atlantic Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0038-2876 • E-ISSN: 1527-8026 |
| Publisher | Duke University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1215/00382876-11381025 |
| OpenAlex | W4403911217 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 20 |
After the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in 2014 and the fight of both Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces as well as the Syrian Kurdish forces of the People's Protection Units (YPG, Yekîneyên Parastina Gel) and the Women's Protection Units (YPJ, Yekîneyên Parastina Jin) against them, Western journalists tried to gather information quickly. Locals were happy to share as much as possible, as ISIS was a great danger. As an often forgotten population under permanent occupation seeking visibility, the Kurds allow Westerners unparalleled access to the field and provide unpaid or underpaid labor, hoping that the world will see their struggle. This deepened the disparity between Kurdish journalists, academics, and writers and their Western counterparts. Using postcolonial theory on the mindset of colonialized peoples, this article shows how the fear of being forgotten, the material disparity between colonizers and colonized, and the coloniality of local political actors are obstacles for Kurdish professionals. Looking at a focus-group discussion and two interviews with Kurdish journalists, fixers, and translators from Iraq and Syria, the comparison shows that both autonomous regions are projects that sought to end decades of occupation and now face challenges that show similarities and differences
Precarity · Sociology · Gender Studies · Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts · Political Conflict and Governance · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence
Basic and Advanced Focus Groups
The Colonizer and the Colonized
Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse
Building brand Kurdistan
Mutual Economic Interdependence or Economic Imbalance
Media Capture and Journalism as Emotional Labor
The Kurds and Their “Others”
The Kurdish Crisis and Allied Intervention in the Aftermath of the Second Gulf War
The Kurdish question in the aftermath of the Gulf War
The Kurdish Spring
State Ideology and the Kurds in Turkey
Fixing” the Journalist-Fixer Relationship
Our ears and our eyes
Professional role perceptions among Iraqi Kurdish journalists from a ‘state within a state
Adding Theoretical Grounding to Grounded Theory
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |