Inhabiting Difference across Religion and Gender: Displaced Women’s Experiences at Turkey’s Border with Syria

Abstract

The global refugee crisis gives new urgency to questions of gender and religion in contexts of displacement. This article adopts and contributes to an intersectional feminist reading of gendered displacement by examining the daily lives of a diverse group of displaced Syrian women at the southern borderlands of Turkey, a country hosting the world’s largest population of refugees today. I argue that the vernaculars of hospitality and border crossings surrounding these women’s lives assemble gendered practices and religious discourses in ways that rework and transcend their citizenship and identity-based differences. These assemblages, moreover, derive significant insight from women’s labour and everyday networks at the local level, which often go unnoticed in public debates. Research that shifts focus from institutional governance to women’s everyday sociality allows intersectional feminists to capture the nuances of displaced women’s agency and the contingencies of their dwelling and mobility in the Middle East against the de-historicized representations of victimized refugee women.

Displacement and Emotional Well-Being among Married and Unmarried Syrian Adolescent Girls in Lebanon: An Analysis of Narratives

“…When acknowledging that child marriage is a violation of human rights and of the rights of the child, it is vital to also understand that in light of the dire conditions in Lebanon, specifically in relation to the inability to access quality education, marriage was perceived by some of the girls, and their families, as a better alternative [15]. This finding supports the necessity for a nuanced understanding of child marriage, particularly in settings where girls' experiences of marrying early are embedded within an overwhelming hardship of having fled war and of facing difficulties in the hosting country such as poverty, vulnerable housing, insecurity, and a lack of access to education [11,15,17,33,38]. An intersectional critical feminist analysis permits this nuanced understanding of early marriage among displaced women and girls, in comparison to historical representations of victims.…”

“…We understand gender beyond the dominant focus on women and maternity only. For instance, when women are centered in work on migration, they are often constructed as mothers, wives, daughters and not as community leaders, public persons or workers and defined primarily through their compulsory positioning in the hetero-patriarchal family [32,33]. Displaced Syrian refugee women and girls in Lebanon face precarity and are more likely exposed to gender-related problems such as harassment and exploitation than Lebanese or non-refugee women [34].…”

“…A critical feminist approach provides the tools to identify the global power structures and local vernaculars of ethnicity, language, religion, and socio-economic status that inform the circumstances of being a refugee woman [57]. With regard to Syria, not only is there a distinct culture, lifestyle and set of customs, but the ongoing war-as well as the displacement and resettlement that ensued-has challenged these, resulting in an alarming increase in mental health problems among adolescents [33,38,58,59].…”

“…Violence prevention programs should target boys and girls in schools and community groups as well as awareness raising in other community spaces. A shift in gender roles and expectations is important across refugee and non-refugee populations to enable both sexes to be more independent and to have opportunities and agency that are not undermined by fixed expectations of society based on gender [30,32,33]. Moreover, integrative educational programs should also devise inclusive approaches to involve the students' parents and target this group in awareness-and skills-building interventions such as parenting skills training.…”

The Border Harms of Human Displacement: Harsh Landscapes and Human Rights Violations

“…While early in the conflict, Syrians received short-term protection from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey (e.g., Ineli-Ciger 2017; Janmyr 2016; Sanyal 2018), they have since been facing insecure legal status, limited rights, and precarious living, employment, and mobility situations (e.g., Carpi andŞenoguz 2019;Dagtaş 2018;Ilcan et al 2018). Moreover, Europe too was introducing harmful migration control initiatives around the same time.…”