Feminist Studies
Ideal Women, Invisible Girls?
The following reflections are based on my ethnographic research. This had two focuses: on the one hand the roles of gender and Islam in everyday sociopolitical dynamics in the Sahrawi camps, and on the other the significance of gender and religion in Sahrawi refugees’ interactions with diverse international audiences, including providers of humanitarian aid and political support.4 In particular, my research has examined the ways in which the Sahrawi’s political representatives – the Polisario Front – have presented an idealised depiction of equal gender relations and the empowerment of women in the camps as part of a broader representational strategy designed to attract and maintain international humanitarian and political support for the camp’s inhabitants and the Sahrawis’ quest for the right to self- determination.
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