An examination of the violence perpetrated against women in politically conflicted or militarized areas.

In this book, militarization, nationalism, and globalization are scrutinized at sites of violent conflict from a range of feminist pespectives.

The seventeen essays in Women and Power in the Middle East analyze the social, political, economic, and cultural forces that shape gender systems in the Middle East and North Africa. Published at different times in Middle East Report, the journal of the Middle East Research and Information Project, the essays document empirically the similarities and differences in the gendering of relations of power in twelve countries—Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan, Palestine, Lebanon, Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iran. Together they seek to build a framework for understanding broad patterns of gender in the Arab-Islamic world. Challenging questions are addressed throughout. What roles have women played in politics in this region? When and why are women politically mobilized, and which women? Does the nature and impact of their mobilization differ if it is initiated by the state, nationalist movements, revolutionary parties, or spontaneous revolt? And what happens to women when those agents of mobilization win or lose? In investigating these and other issues, the essays take a look at the impact of rapid social change in the Arab-Islamic world. They also analyze Arab disillusionment with the radical nationalisms of the 1950s and 1960s and with leftist ideologies, as well as the rise of political Islamist movements. Indeed the essays present rich new approaches to assessing what political participation has meant for women in this region and how emerging national states there have dealt with organized efforts by women to influence the institutions that govern their lives. Designed for courses in Middle East, women's, and cultural studies, Women and Power in the Middle East offers to both students and scholars an excellent introduction to the study of gender in the Arab-Islamic world.

“Through elegant ethnography and nuanced theorization . . . gives us a new way of thinking about violence, development, modernity, and ultimately, the city.” —Ananya Roy, University of California, Los Angeles Beirut is a city divided. Following the Green Line of the civil war, dividing the Christian east and the Muslim west, today hundreds of such lines dissect the city. For the residents of Beirut, urban planning could hold promise: a new spatial order could bring a peaceful future. But with unclear state structures and outsourced public processes, urban planning has instead become a contest between religious-political organizations and profit-seeking developers. Neighborhoods reproduce poverty, displacement, and urban violence. For the War Yet to Come examines urban planning in three neighborhoods of Beirut’s southeastern peripheries, revealing how these areas have been developed into frontiers of a continuing sectarian order. Hiba Bou Akar argues these neighborhoods are arranged, not in the expectation of a bright future, but according to the logic of “the war yet to come”: urban planning plays on fears and differences, rumors of war, and paramilitary strategies to organize everyday life. As she shows, war in times of peace is not fought with tanks, artillery, and rifles, but involves a more mundane territorial contest for land and apartment sales, zoning and planning regulations, and infrastructure projects. Winner of the Anthony Leeds Prize “Upends our conventional notions of center and periphery, of local and transnational, even of war and peace.” —AbdouMaliq Simone, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity “Fascinating, theoretically astute, and empirically rich.” —Asef Bayat, University of Illinois — Urbana-Champaign “An important contribution.” —Christine Mady, International Journal of Middle East Studies

This report investigates causes, forms and remedies. It explores the relationship between violence against women and poverty, discrimination and militarisation. It highlights the responsibility of the state, the community and individuals for taking action to end violence against women.

Women in conflict zones face a wide range of violence from a variety of sources: from physical and psychological trauma to political, economic and social disadvantage. Maria Holt uses her research gathered in the Palestinian refugee camps of Lebanon and in the West Bank to look at the forms and effects of violence suffered by women in the context of the wider conflict around them. After the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, Palestinian refugees fled over the border into Lebanon, and in the wake of tumult in other host states, such as Jordan, many more sought refuge there. Today more than 400,000 Palestinians reside in Lebanon, and the theme of violence is one that informs their daily life. Holt explores these varying forms of violence, including physical personal violence and the violence of war as well as the more symbolic violence of the disintegration of daily life and erasure of homeland, furthermore highlighting ongoing exclusion and isolation Palestinians are subjected to by the Lebanese state. Nevertheless, this condition of being - but not belonging - in Lebanon has influenced refugees' perceptions of themselves. Holt therefore analyses the daily life of Palestinians, recognising the unique community that has emerged in response to exile. In an atmosphere of violence, these refugees find coping mechanisms and appropriate strategies to counter the pressures of conflict. Adherence to religious belief and valued traditional practices, as well as involvement in political and welfare activities and, on occasion, militant activism, are some of the methods employed by women. With its systematic examination of forms of violence as well as an appreciation of daily life in the refugee camps, Women and Conflict in the Middle East makes essential reading for students of the Israel-Palestine conflict as well as those interested in the gender dimension of violence.