Masood Presents on Spatial and Symbolic Violence in U.S.-Occupied Kabul

Hamline University Assistant Professor of Social Justice and Social Change, Syeda Quratulain Masood, presented her research at a Syracuse University panel on the Sociology of Violence. Her presentation, titled “Segregation and Surveillance: Imperial Spatial Formation and Afghan Subjectivity in U.S.-Occupied Kabul,” drew from ethnographic fieldwork in post-9/11 Kabul. Masood’s work examines how the material infrastructures of segregation and surveillance—such as compound walls, checkpoints, and aerial blimps—shaped the lived experience of Afghans during U.S. occupation. Drawing on everyday encounters with these architectures, she explores how spatial and symbolic violence intertwined in ordinary acts of movement, waiting, and self-understanding.