Cover not available

Article published In: Narrative Inquiry
Vol. 28:1 (2018) ► pp.161–180

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

From personal narrative to global call for action

The case of Yezidi survivor Nadia Murad

 | University of Birmingham | Al-Mustansiriya University
Published online: 27 September 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.16058.mus
Abstract
This paper examines personal narratives and how they change according to the context in which they are narrated. In particular, it argues that personal narratives change as they are mediated by various discourses, genres and modes, as well as by the peculiarities that emerge when speaking and writing in different languages and when undertaking translation. It uses a case-study approach to analyse the different narratives told by Islamic State’s Yezidi female survivor, and United Nations Goodwill ambassador, Nadia Murad, in different contexts in 2014 and in Murad, N. (2015, December 29). Post. [Facebook Page]. Retrieved from [URL]. In 2014, when two Western mass media outlets interviewed Murad, her narrative was compacted and less detailed. This shifted in December Murad, N. (2015, December 29). Post. [Facebook Page]. Retrieved from [URL] when Murad testified about her ordeal before the Security Council. Mediated by the discourse of the latter and by the genre of testimony, Murad’s narrative became more detailed, and transformed from a description of a personal suffering into a call for action.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Theoretical framework
  • Method and data collection
  • Contextual background
  • The case study of Nadia Murad
  • Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (56)
References
Agha, A. (2011). Meet mediatization. Language & Communication, 31(3), 163–170. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Al Muhajirah, U. (2015, May). Slave-girls or prostitutes? Dabiq, 91, 44–49. Retrieved from [URL]
Al-Ali, N. (2016). Sexual violence in Iraq: Challenges for transnational feminist politics. European Journal of Women’s Studies. Advance online publication. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Al-Dababir, I. (2014, September 26). [A Yezidi girl escaped Daesh in Mosul]. [Video file] Retrieved from [URL]
Al-Hatab, J. (2014, September 7). . [Yezidi girl survivor: This is how Daesh’s Amir raped our girls]. Alarabiya. Retrieved from [URL]
Andrews, M. (2010). Beyond narrative. The shape of traumatic testimony. In M. Hyvärinen, L. C. Hydén, M. Saarenheimo & M. Tamboukou (Eds.), Beyond narrative coherence (pp. 147–166). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Arango, T. (2014, August 4). Iraq Agrees to Help Kurds Battle Sunni Extremists. The New York Times. Retrieved from [URL]
Baker, M. (2006). Translation and conflict: A narrative account. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bal, M. (2009). Narratology: Introduction to the theory of narrative (3rd ed.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brison, S. J. (1999). Trauma narratives and the remaking of the self. Acts of memory: Cultural recall in the present, 39–54.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bruner, J. (1991). The narrative construction of reality. Critical Inquiry, 18(1), 1–21. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Callimachi, R. (2015, August 13). ISIS enshrines a theology of rape. The New York Times. Retrieved from [URL]
Catenaccio, P., Cotter, C., De Smedt, M., Garzone, G., Jacobs, G., Macgilchrist, F., Lutgard, L., D. Perrin, T. Van Hout, J. E. Richardson. (2011). Towards a linguistics of news production. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(7), 1843–1852. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Edkins, J. (2003). Trauma and the memory of politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ensler, E. (2016, April 21). Nadia Murad: A witness for war’s victims. Time. Retrieved from [URL]
Foucault, M. (1981). The order of discourse. In R. Young (Ed.) & I. McLeod (Trans.). Untying the text: A post-structuralist reader (pp. 48–78). London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Frosh, Paul. (2009). Telling presences: Witnessing, mass Media, and the imagined lives of strangers. In P. Frosh & A. Pinchevski (Eds.), Media witnessing: Testimony in the age of mass communication (pp. 49–72). Basingstoke: Palgrave. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gee, J. P. (1996). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses (2nd ed.). London: Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hamoud, M. (2015, August 22) داعش تقدس الاغتصاب وتجعله شريعة الهية. [Daesh enshrines rape and makes it a Godly Shari ’a]. Iraqi Translation Project. Retrieved from [URL]
Hoppe, R. (2014, October 15). Nine days in the caliphate: A Yazidi woman’s ordeal as an Islamic State captive. Spiegel online international. Retrieved from [URL].
Human Rights Watch (2015, April 14). Iraq: ISIS escapees describe systematic rape. Retrieved from [URL].
. (2014, October 11). Iraq: Forced marriage, conversion for Yezidis. Retrieved from [URL]
ISIS Trafficking Yazidi Women for Sex. (2014, September 24). BBC. Retrieved from [URL]
Jones, S. (2017). Mediated immediacy: constructing authentic testimony in audio-visual media. Rethinking History, 1–19. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kress, G. (2010). Multimodality: A social-semiotic approach to contemporary communication. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
MacKay, T. (2003, March). Gee’s theory of D/discourse and research in teaching English as a second language: Implications for the mainstream. Paper session presented at the meeting of Education Graduate Symposium . Canada: University of Manitoba. Retrieved from [URL].
Mandalawi, S. M. (2016, January 1). The Yezidi Malala, Nadia Murad, for Nobel peace prize. Rudaw. Retrieved from [URL].
Margalit, A. (2002). Ethics of Memory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Murad, N. (2015, December 29). Post. [Facebook Page]. Retrieved from [URL]
Norrick, N. R. (2013). Narratives of vicarious experience in conversation. Language in Society, 42(04), 385–406. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Patel, I. (2012). The role of testimony and testimonial analysis in human rights advocacy and research. State Crime Journal, 1(2), 235–265.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pavlenko, A. (ed.) (2006). Bilingual minds: Emotional experience, expression and representation. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Polletta, F. (2009). Storytelling in social movements. In J. Hank (Eds.), Culture, Social Movements and Protest (pp. 33–54). Surrey: Ashgate.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Power, S. (2007). A problem from hell: America and the age of genocide. New York: Harper.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rashid, Mostafa. (2015, December 17). كلمة الاميرة الايزيدية العراقية نادية مراد في مجلس الامن. [Iraqi Yezidi princess’ Nadia Murad speech in the Security Council]. Retrieved from [URL]
Roy, S. (2007). Of testimony: The pain of speaking and the speaking of pain. Unpublished paper. Warwick, England.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sallum, S. (2013). Minorities in Iraq: Memory, identify, and challenges. Baghdad: National library and archive.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schaffer, K. & Smith, S. (2004). Conjunctions: Life narratives in the field of human rights. Biography, 27(1), 1–24. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schapiro, A. A. (2014, August 11). Who are the Yezidis, the ancient, Persecuted religious minority struggling to survive in Iraq? National geographic news. Retrieved from [URL].
Schauer, E. J., & Wheaton, E. M. (2006). Sex trafficking into the United States: A literature review. Criminal Justice Review, 31(2), 146–169. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shammo, N. (2015, November 25). Nadia Murad, the Yezidi girl freed from ISIS, talk at UN forum on minority issues. [Video file] Retrieved from [URL]
Skjelsbæk, I. (2006). Victim and survivor: Narrated social identities of women who experienced rape during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Feminism & Psychology, 16(4), 373–403. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Somers, M. R. (1994). The narrative constitution of identity: A relational and network approach. Theory and society, 23(5), 605–649. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Somers, M. R., & Gibson, G. D. (1994). Reclaiming the epistemological “other”: Narrative and the social constitution of identity. In Craig Calhoun (Ed.), Social theory and the politics of identity (pp. 37–99). Oxford UK and Cambridge USA: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Temple, B. (2008). Narrative analysis of written texts: Reflexivity in cross language research. Qualitative Research, 8(3), 355–365. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
The revival of slavery before the Hour. (2014). Dabiq, 41, 14–17. Retrieved from [URL]
Tuval-Mashiach, R., Freedman, S., Bargai, N., Boker, R., Hadar, H., & Shalev, A. Y. (2004). Coping with trauma: Narrative and cognitive perspectives. Psychiatry: Interpersonal and Biological Processes, 67(3), 280–293. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
UNDOC.Org. (2016, September 14). Nadia Murad Basee Taha to be appointed Goodwill Ambassador by UNODC on 16th September in New York. Retrieved from [URL]
United Nations Security Council. (2015). Maintenance of international peace and security: Trafficking in persons in situations of conflict. Retrieved from [URL]
United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq & Human Rights Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights. (2014). Report on the protection of civilians in armed conflict in Iraq: 6 July-10 September 2014. Retrieved from [URL]
Wallen, J. (2009). Narrative tensions: The archive and the eyewitness. Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas, 7(2), 261–278. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zen, E. (2014, August 5). Iraqi Yezidi MP Breaks Down in Parliament: ISIL is Exterminating my People. [Video file] Retrieved from [URL]
[Nadia Murad to Rudaw: Liberating Yezidi girls more important than Nobel]. (2016, March 19). Rudaw. Retrieved from [URL]
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Mustafa, Balsam
2022. The Bigh Daddy Show: The potentiality and shortcomings of countering Islamic State through animated satire. Digest of Middle East Studies 31:2 ► pp. 113 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue