Forgotten Revolutionaries: Reflections on Political Emancipation for Palestinian Refugee Women in Lebanon

Abstract

This research explores Palestinian refugee women’s political rights through a broader examination of the gender dynamics in one refugee camp in Lebanon. Using two focus groups and individual interviews with 20 women, the research highlights the patriarchal and colonial structures that dominate the women’s lives, preventing them not only from engaging in political activities, but also hindering their opportunities for work and socialization outside their immediate familial spheres. The political disillusionment within the researched and broader Palestinian community, as a result of the encroaching project of Empire as defined by Hardt and Negri, has created a divided Palestinian cause, a failed youth, and a society attempting to hold on to its identity. However, along with that comes the oppression of a sub-section of that society – the women; the remaining possession that the men have. Women who previously engaged in armed resistance have not advanced politically, socially, or economically – and in fact the history of their struggles are being erased as surely as their land is. Nonetheless, pockets of resistance – a Multitude – of women, agents in their own fates, are fighting the current towards a more emancipatory future for themselves and future Palestinian men and women.