Analysing individual motivations, organisational characteristics, security pressures and societal factors, this thesis focuses on organisational motivations for the inclusion of female fighters during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990). It examines why some of the non-state armed organisations (or militias) involved in the war included women as fighters whereas others did not. This thesis is the first comprehensive analysis of the topic, and the first study which takes into account the roles of women in all major militias involved in the war, including the Lebanese Communist Party (LCP), Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah), Lebanese Kataeb Party (Kataeb), Lebanese Forces (LF), Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) and Amal Movement (Amal). This thesis is based on semi-structured interviews with 69 former male and female fighters, party members, civil society representatives, researchers and journalists. Fieldwork was conducted during four one- to six-week-long field visits to Lebanon between the summer of 2015 and autumn 2016. Moreover, four (auto)biographies of former female fighters were included in the analysis. This thesis argues that the main reason for female participation in the militias involved in the Lebanese civil war was women’s insistence to be included. Organisational barriers to women’s inclusion in those militias that were not entirely in favour of female participation, such as the militias of the (centre) right, was overcome due to the security context. Overall, societal opposition to female participation remained relatively high, which is why (compared with other conflict contexts) the overall number of female fighters was not higher.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:742186 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Eggert, Jennifer Philippa |
| Publisher | University of Warwick |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/100743/ |
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