Feminism, gender and power in Kurdish Studies: An interview with Prof. Shahrzad Mojab

In this interview, Prof. Shahrzad Mojab reflects on her longstanding personal, political, and intellectual engagement
with Kurdish women. Twenty years after publishing the ground-breaking edited volume Women of a Non-State
Nation: The Kurds (Mazda Publishers, 2001), Mojab assesses the complex relation between Kurdish Studies and
feminism and evaluates current discussions regarding gendered power relations in Kurdish scholarship. Gender
relations in Kurdish society and in Kurdish Studies can only be understood, she insists, when taking into account how
gender intersects with capitalism, class, colonialism, nationalism, and patriarchy. Through her personal trajectory, the
interview offers insight into the historical developments that have facilitated Kurdish women to increasingly be included
in Kurdish Studies as both researchers and research participants.