This article discusses the authors’ experiences of researching the situation of women in Iraq since 2003. It highlights a number of methodological, theoretical and practical issues that arise as part of the research process and their implications for the production of knowledge about women in Iraq. These issues include examining the impact of the authors’ subject positions and the power of dominant discourses put forward by different political actors with regards to the conceptualization of ‘Tragi women,’ the politics of war and occupation and resistance to it, and the deployment of gender in the political post-invasion transition. The authors attempt to deconstruct the different discourses and, in so doing, to uncover the diversity of Iraqi women and the complexity of their experiences in Iraq and identify both the limitations of and possibilities for researching women in Iraq. The article uncovers the ways in which dominant discourses label issues and problems in ways that are counter-productive to finding just and lasting solutions for women in Iraq—particularly in the process of building a ” peaceful and stable Iraqi nation-state, which can guarantee rights for all of its citizens.