Description
This article re-conceptualises ‘negotiation’ beyond formal access to diplomacy. The article zooms in on the 2021 Taliban takeover of Afghanistan to analyse the epic failure of the Doha Negotiations (2018–2021) between the United States and the Taliban. The article asks the question: What constitutes Afghan women’s agency amidst an apparent lack of voice in the aftermath of the 2021 Taliban takeover? This question of agency pertains to Afghan women’s liminal status, landing in a space in between voice and silence, and state and statelessness. The first part of the article analyses the discursive nature of the Doha negotiations—historical background, procedural lapses, and outcome gaps, forming the colonial basis of diplomatic engagement. This analysis is further corroborated in light of the four-interviews with the Afghan women delegation to the Doha negotiations. I argue that this form of diplomacy is a classic example of women’s bodies becoming the site of control—be it the Taliban’s internal colonialism of women or the US and its alliance’s external imperial ignorance of women’s fate after their untimely withdrawal. The article argues that this is a calculated silencing of women by imposing an illocutionary disablement of Afghan women's speech act. The second part of the article shows that despite the failure of the formal diplomatic channels, there are significant examples of Afghan women strategising survival as part of their daily negotiation with life. Drawing on James Scott’s idea of everyday resistance, the article argues that the Afghan diaspora’s continued acts of subtle defiance create a space for dissent beneath the surface of their outward conformity. Reaffirming Spivak’s strategic essentialism, in which Afghan women temporarily embrace a collective identity as Afghan irrespective of communal differences within Afghan society, the article envisions agency as contextual, mediated, and tactical.
