Collective safety-making as empowerment in a women and girl safe space in Lebanon

Abstract

The gendered displacement experiences of Syrian women and girls have been a significant focus of both the academic and development and humanitarian gaze. In response, humanitarian and development organisations have increasingly implemented women and girl safe spaces. Yet, little is known about Syrian women’s experiences within them, nor the structures and practice shaping those experiences. Drawing on feminist ethnographic fieldwork in a women and girl safe space in the Beqaa valley in Lebanon, I explore Syrian women’s experiences of at-homeness, disclosure, sharing, and alternative futures in relation to the various safety-making practices and structures in the women and girl safe space. My findings highlight the potential for women and girl safe spaces to counteract the everyday isolation and hardship forcibly displaced women face, as well as helping to build the emotional safety and community that they need to navigate forced displacement and strive towards transformative change. I conclude that additional research on the practices and structures that enable collective safety-making and empowerment is imperative.

Keywords:

• Development and humanitarian responses
• forced displacement
• gender-based violence
• safe spaces
• women’s empowerment
• women and girl safe spaces

Acknowledgements

My deepest gratitude to my research participants who shared their time and experiences with an open heart. Thanks also to the staff for giving my fieldwork the go ahead, and especially to the safe space’s assistant who helped enormously in arranging interviews. Special thanks to Miriam Gioia Sessa and my doctoral supervisors Dr Cathy Vaughan and Dr Karen Block (University of Melbourne), as well as the anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback on various drafts of this paper.

Disclosure statement

The author reports there are no competing interests to declare.

Funding

My fieldwork was supported by Graduate Women New Zealand and Melbourne Social Equity Institute.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hala Nasr

Hala Nasr is a sexual and gender-based violence practitioner and PhD candidate at the Centre for Health Equity at Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. Her doctoral research is focused on women and girl safe spaces implemented by development and humanitarian organisations. Her research interests include gender-based violence, women’s empowerment, gender and development, and transnational and third world feminist methodologies.