Al-Hollywood: Contradictory Narratives from ISIS Affiliated Women in the Al-Hol Camp

• In Event: NARRCRIM Panel 2 Narrative Criminology

Abstract

A total of 5,394 women fulfilled their religious duty to perform hijra (emigration) to the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS) following the former IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s call on Muslims to do so in the summer of 2014. The vast majority of the previous research on women affiliated with ISIS focuses on female radicalization processes leading them to join ISIS and women’s roles in ISIS territory. Still, very little is known about the many women (96 %, June 2018) who have remained in the conflict zone, including those who are held captive in, for example, the Al-Hol camp. This paper is based on an open source social media study of textual and visual materials posted by nine women who self-identify as prisoners in the Al-Hol camp, and textually and/or visually indicate identification with the Salafi-jihadi movement. The paper demonstrates empirical insights into the women’s everyday life in the Al-Hol camp and how they cope with their life situation. More specifically, it outlines the women’s contradictory narratives of despair over their life situation and glorification of the Caliphate - a state of mind some women seem to have coined the term “Al-Hollywood” to describe.

Author

• Henriette Frees Esholdt, Lund University