Abdulqawi Hazaea, NUIEC Scholar Lecture Series

Country of Origin: Yemen
Formerly hosted by Columbia Global Center, Amman.

“From Silence to Defiance: Yemeni Women’s Resilience, Resistance, and Peacebuilding in a Decade of War”

This presentation examines the representation of Yemeni women’s resilience, resistance, and peacebuilding in contemporary literature produced during Yemen’s decade of war. With particular attention to Marwan al-Ghafoori’s Saʿadah’s Braids, it explores how tribal patriarchy, sectarian authority, militarized masculinity, and codes of honor converge upon women’s bodies, memories, and voices. Drawing on trauma theory, postcolonial feminism, and feminist peacebuilding studies, the lecture argues that women’s narratives transform silence into testimony and private suffering into political critique. It examines displacement, motherhood, memory, education, care, and storytelling as forms of everyday resistance and moral opposition to war. Rather than presenting Yemeni women merely as passive victims of conflict, the lecture recognizes them as historical witnesses, ethical critics, preservers of collective memory, and active agents of peacebuilding. Ultimately, it argues that Yemeni women’s stories must enter public and institutional memory if Yemen’s war, trauma, and prospects for an inclusive peace are to be understood honestly.

Willing to share personal story.