ICTs, Agency, and Gender in Syrian Activists’ Work among Syrian Refugees in Jordan

Abstract

This article examines the work of Syrian activists with Syrian refugee women in Jordan and the relationship between their online and offline activism. Based upon fieldwork of a broader study in Jordan during the summer of 2013, including 19 in-depth interviews with feminist and humanitarian activists, this article demonstrates how they use information and communication technologies (ICTs) in varying and highly specific ways according to the historical, social, and political contexts. It is the work of these on-theground activists who use online media as a tool to garner support, and not mere online propaganda alone, that is the key to understanding the ways in which ICTs are used to improve the lives of marginalized Syrian refugee women. This article also demonstrates that just as ICTs can be used by activists to further their efforts at reform and to improve the lives of women, they can sometimes be misused to misrepresent feminist progress through the propagation of essentializing cultural and gender discourses.

Key Words:

• Arab Spring
• Syria
• information and communication technologies
• agency
• social change
• social media
• activism
• refugees