Invisible Pirates: Women and the Gendered Roles of Somali Piracy

• In Event: White Collar and Organized Crime: The Framing and Boundaries of Deviance

Abstract

Women’s participation in maritime piracy activities has spanned throughout the centuries and across the globe. However, women's participation in contemporary maritime piracy has yet to receive academic attention. Based upon ethnographic research conducted in Somalia, this study seeks to (re)conceptualize Somali piracy as a gendered activity by examining four roles women fulfill in the onshore infrastructure: relationship facilitators, resource dealers, care workers, and financial investors. In doing so, it attempts to disrupt the male-biased understanding of Somali piracy in three ways. First, it highlights the general masculinization of Somali piracy in text and visual imagery. Second, it describes how Somali women are often framed as victims of piracy. Third, and the focus of the study, it makes women pirates visible by introducing testimonials about their roles in onshore piracy operations. I argue that these testimonials help construct a feminist counter-topography of Somali piracy that reveals how the entanglement of local gender expectations and criminal enterprise has created roles and spaces that facilitate the active participation of women.

Author

• Brittany Gilmer, Florida International University