© 1989 by Oxford University Press
Ethnic Human Rights and Feminist Theory: Gender Implications for Refugee Studies and Practice
Department of Anthropology, University of Lethbridge Canada
Over the past ten years, many individuals and institutions providing humanitarian assistance to refugees have asserted a commitment to increasing the participatory input of refugees, especially women. Refugee research has also begun to stress the practical need for greater refugee input. Also, while still a minor element in refugee studies, inquiry concerning refugee women is on the upswing. However, the uncritical acceptance of liberal participatory democratic ideology presently impedes the drive to increase effective refugee participation, especially on the part of women. It also places an unrealistically narrow and biased constraint on the analysis of women and gender structures in refugee studies. A feminist analysis of liberal democratic philosophy and practice is outlined, and is exemplified by a Canadian instance of representative ethnic rights advocacy. These have a number of implications for how both refugee studies and humanitarian assistance address issues of women, gender and participation, which are outlined in conclusion.
* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Workshop on Ethnic Human Rights and Feminist Theory, co-sponsored by the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research for Women and the Refugee Studies Programme, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford, 7 June 1988 I would like to thank Shirley Ardener, Dr Helen Callaway and Dr Barbara Harrell-Bond for their support in making this possible Professor Elizabeth Colson kindly read and commentated on earlier drafts of this paper and I gratefully acknowledge her support. Thanks also go to Paul Letkemann, who assisted in the analysis of the Canadian data, and particularly to Dr Norman Buchignani, who made an important editorial contribution to the paper I would also like to acknowledge the financial support of the University of Lethbridge Research Fund.