Women's Political Biographies in the MENAT Region

Book Presentation

Viola Raheb in conversation with Hind Kabawat, Randa Siniora and Heidemarie Winkel

Women's Political Biographies in the MENAT Region

At the end of the conference at the Bruno Kreisky Forum in November 2023 on "Women's lives and agency in the MENAT Region- between political activism and realism", women from different countries and backgrounds were invited to shed light on their contexts, socio-economic and political developments, violence - especially gender-based violence - in times of war and its impact on women's lives, engagement and agency. With the rise of populism and reactionary movements, women's rights seem to need to be renegotiated. As a result of polarisation and ambivalence, listening to and understanding women from the MENAT region is becoming less important.
In many Western countries, a dominant perception of the lives and work of women in the MENAT region prevails, and a knowledge deficit compared to other regions of the world, e.g. Latin America, still exists. The book aims to give female political actors from the region a face and a name by using biographical essays as a method of knowledge production and awareness-raising, while promoting synergies and advocating the need for networking and cooperation.

"Eleven biographies from seven different countries from diverse generations, backgrounds, and areas of engagement are presented in this book. In their biographies, the contributors address political developments over the last decades in their countries and the region. Historical political phases, be it the end of the colonial rule and the phase of independence in Tunisia, the Baath-rule era and the war in Syria, or the Palestinian Nakba of 1948 and the continuing wars and displacement of Palestinians, become embodied in the lives of the women narrators and how these phases shaped and still shape their lives and work.” Viola Raheb, Co-Editor

Welcome:
Getraud Auer Borea d'Olmo, General Secretary of the BKF

Introductory remarks:
Ursula Plassnik, former Federal Minister for European and International Affairs, Ambassador ret.

Hind Kabawat, former deputy head of the Syrian Negotiation Commission's Geneva Office and a former member of the High Negotiations Committee (HNC); President of TASTAKEL women's organisation for women's empowerment and peacebuilding

Randa Siniora, General director of the Women's Center for Legal Aid and Counselling and Palestinian human rights activist

Heidemarie Winkel, professor of sociology at Bielefeld University and senior research associate at the VHI/St. Edmund's College, Cambridge University (UK)

Viola Raheb, Scholar of Religious Studies, Lecturer, Writer, and Senior Fellow at BKF