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Women, wars, citizenship, migration, and identity: Some illustrations from the Middle East

For too long, the analytical parameters for understanding citizenship, identity and the processes of war and migration have been set by men and much of the analysis has been located in the west. This collection of papers seeks to present a very different perspective, one that is focused on women and located in the Middle East. It is hoped that these papers will help to remove some misunderstandings, particularly those concerned with Muslim women. Citizenship and identity have generally been seen as the prerogative of men who could bestow it on their wives and children. War and migration too have been generally analysed and understood as male domains with women protected from the carnage at the fronts and largely migrating as dependents. However, as the articles in this special issue demonstrate, feminists have effectively inserted a note of reality that reflects the lived experiences of women who experience and participate in very different ways in these processes. It is the contention of these papers that women play an important part in wars and migration and in defining their own identities. They should, though don’t always, have the right to citizenship for themselves, rather than as dependent beings. Particularly in the Middle East, the experiences of wars and calamities and the emergence of various shades of radical Islam have situated women both at the centre, as the public face of Islam, and at the periphery, by demanding that they cover and hide from the public gaze and by barring their way to the public sphere. However, as the case studies presented here demonstrate, women are not passive recipients of political and ideological constructions. They play an active and important role in shaping their own destinies and subverting political directives.