In this Ceremonial Colloquium, Dima Al Munajed will discuss her award-winning doctoral thesis. In it, she challenges the homogenizing, victim-centered narratives that dominate post-2011 research on Syrian refugee women. Instead, she focuses on their strength and agency. Using an ethnographic, comparative case study approach, Munajed examined how the differing responses of the Lebanese and Turkish governments to the Syrian refugee crisis shaped the civic engagement of Syrian women during the same period of displacement. She found an overall increase in civic participation after the war. The findings of the thesis on the growth and diversity of Syrian women's feminist activism and awareness since 2011 provide valuable context for understanding current debates over the roles of Syrian women following the recent liberation of Syria from over 50 years of al-Assad rule and Baathist policies.

The ZEF Doctoral Thesis Prize is awarded every two years by the Friends of ZEF Association.