GENDER CONCEPTIONS, WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT, AND HUMANITARIAN TESTIMONIES: AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF A WOMEN’S SAFE SPACE IN DAMASCUS, SYRIA.

Abstract

In this thesis, I explore the role of Women’s Safe Spaces (WSSs) in shaping women’s conception of gender and personhood. I look at the gender conceptions that WSSs articulate through their services and trainings, and through how they represent these gender conceptions to their participants. I show how Women’s Safe Spaces are actively helping to redefine women’s conception of gender, how women strategize to share personal experiences, and how they understand themselves and their social worlds. I explore how Women’s Safe Spaces articulate gender conceptions that reflect both public discourses in Syria, and neoliberal approaches to women’s empowerment, and the way these spaces contribute to the de-politicization of the Syrian war. This thesis combines the collection of oral histories with participant observation in a Women’s Safe Space located in Damascus. It will focus on the services and the trainings provided in this Women’s Safe Space as part of larger humanitarian intervention programs that target women in Syria. This study of a Women’s Safe Space will propose how women’s identities and conceptions of gender are changing along with the social meanings that humanitarian institutions attach to gendered interventions.