Representation of Women in the Photography of the Iran-Iraq War; A Foucauldian Reading of Discipline and Agency in Light of the Values of Islamic Art

Abstract

The representation of women in war photography is one of the most important arenas for the formation of discourses of power, gender, and social action, and one of the central axes of committed art during the imposed war. In the dominant discourse of war, women are mostly depicted in roles such as motherhood, support, and service provision, and their bodies carry moral and religious meanings such as sacrifice, duty, dignity, and martyrdom-seeking, which simultaneously reflect Shi’i values and the revolutionary discourse. The present research aims to examine Foucauldian mechanisms of power, discipline, and normalization, and their relationship with agency, female resistance, and women’s Islamic identity within the framework of these revolutionary Shi’i values in the photography of the Iran-Iraq war. This study, with a qualitative approach and based on a combination of Foucauldian discourse analysis and religious meaning-making, has analyzed a collection of selected war photographs from archival and library sources. The results showed that the representation of women is largely formed based on gender divisions and established roles, and the female body is reproduced within the framework of committed art as a supporter of war; nevertheless, these very bodies can create possibilities for resistance and female agency within structural constraints and dominant discourses. Furthermore, the female body in these photographs also carries a sacred meaning; the wounded body is interpreted through concepts of divine trial, patience, and the dignity of suffering, the displaced body symbolizes moral victimhood, and the disciplined body with hijab is linked to jihad and the identity of the revolutionary Islamic woman. Overall, the female body in these images appears at the intersection of power and sacredness, and its understanding requires simultaneous attention to visual mechanisms of power, the discourse of committed art, and the reflection of Shi’i values within the Islamic semantic horizon.

Keywords: War Photography, Women, Foucault, Power, Islamic-Revolutionary Discourse

Introduction

The Iran-Iraq war is considered one of the significant turning points in the contemporary history of Iran in terms of its social and cultural consequences. In such a context, war photography is not merely a tool for recording reality but also plays a role in shaping meaning and consolidating dominant discourses. The representation of women in war images is the result of the interaction of historical and social forces and cannot by any means be considered a neutral or impartial process. This representation is formed within a network of gazes, rules, and cultural expectations; a network that defines, redefines, and consolidates gender roles and positions. Hence, war images become an arena in which the female body is simultaneously subjected to discipline and normalization and carries the possibility of representing resistance and steadfastness.

A review of the conducted research shows that despite numerous studies on war photography and the representation of violence, a coherent and theoretical analysis of the presence of women in the images of the Iran-Iraq war, especially relying on the concepts and theoretical apparatus of Michel Foucault and in light of the values of Islamic art, has received less attention. Islamic art, with its emphasis on ethical and religious principles, influences the manner of representing women in war photography and makes attention to this dimension necessary. Therefore, examining the mechanisms of power/knowledge and the discipline of the female body in these images, considering values such as human dignity, modesty, and hijab, gains double importance. Accordingly, the main problem of the research is how the images of the Iran-Iraq war represent women, and to what extent this representation, within the framework of the values of Islamic art, carries disciplinary and normalizing mechanisms. In response to this question, the present research is based on the assumption that war photography, as a medium, represents women’s bodies not merely as witnesses or victims, but as an arena for the exercise of power, surveillance, and subjectification; a representation that, while influenced by the ethical and religious principles of Islamic art, also leads to the production of meaning regarding the position of women in the space of war.

Conclusion

The present research, employing Foucauldian concepts of power, discipline, normalization, and biopower, and integrating them with the Shi’i Islamic semantic horizon, demonstrated that the photography of the Iran-Iraq war is one of the main arenas for the formation, consolidation, and at the same time, redefinition of gender representations of women’s bodies. The findings of this research confirm that the camera during the Sacred Defense era was a strategic tool for shaping gender representations of the female body. The female body in the images is formulated in three states: the wounded body, the displaced body, and the disciplined body. In each state, techniques of subjugation and mechanisms of disciplinary power are applied to the female body. However, women’s bodies acquire a sacred identity that transcends materialistic analyses. This identity is shaped through transcendent concepts such as affliction (ibtilā), beautiful patience (ṣabr jamīl), and human dignity. Thus, the female body in these images becomes the field of the conflicting intersection of Body Politics and the Sacred Body; a place where power and faith are intertwined.

In response to the fundamental questions of the research, the results showed that the female body in war photography is constructed and processed at the intersection of multiple forces, including political power, gender, social agency, and revelatory semantic systems. Women in war are both wounded bodies bearing the mark of violence and displaced and disciplined bodies. In the Shi’i Islamic discourse, these situations are redefined and acquire a transcendental meaning. Physical injury transforms into sacred patience, displacement into the dignity of suffering, and the discipline of presence into jihad fi sabilillah. Hijab appears as a strategic sign of the identity of the revolutionary Muslim woman. Women are transformed from passive victims into moral, faithful, and resistant subjects. Mechanisms of discipline and normalization manifest through the management of spaces, bodies, and gestures. Physical discipline in women engaged in war consolidates permissible female roles. In moments of emotional intensity, gender normalization prevails. Semiotic analysis of the images shows that the female body can be positioned within the network of power and produce an independent subjectivity.

In comparison with the research background, the present findings align with the results of scholars such as King (2004) regarding bodily discipline and Liu (2015) concerning representational roles and the possibility of resistance in war photography. However, this research, with its special focus on the very body of women as subjects and its analysis through the lens of biopower concepts, distinguishes its boundaries from studies such as those by Armand (2016), Davari (2019), and Amirnia (2018), which have mostly focused on the photographer’s gaze or the totality of violence. Also, in comparison with international studies such as Fetta’s work (2016), the fundamental distinction of this research is that it demonstrates that the wartime body in Iran cannot be understood without grasping the sacred horizon and theological categories. Ultimately, the photography of the Iran-Iraq war is not merely a field for the exercise of power, but the scene of the intersection of subjugation and sacredness, and of order and faith. In this context, women are subjects who, through the redefinition of suffering and their disciplined presence, have drawn a new meaning of dignity and female subjectivity within Iran’s historical-religious context and have challenged dominant one-dimensional narratives. These bodies are not merely bearers of the suffering of war but also producers of the meaning of resistance in the contemporary history of Iran.

Article Link: https://www.sysislamicartjournal.ir/article_246552.html