Organizing Women

Dawn Chatty Senior Research Officer,Refugee Studies Programme, University of Oxford Annika Rabo Assistant Professor of Social Anthropology, Linköping University, Sweden

• Contents: Dawn Chatty, Preface -- Dawn Chatty & Annika Rabo, Formal and Informal Women's Groups in the Middle East: Introduction and Overview -- Valentine Moghadam, Women's NGOs in the Middle East and North Africa: Constraints, Opportunities, and Priorities -- Suad Joseph, Shopkeepers and Feminists: The Reproduction of Political Process (Lebanon) -- Seteney Shami, Domesticity Reconfigured: Women in Squatter Areas of Amman (Jordan) -- Eva Evers Rosander, Women in Groups in Africa: Female Associational Patterns in Senegal and Morocco (Morocco and Senegal) -- May Seikaly, Bahraini Women in Formal and Informal Groups and the Politics of Identification -- Shahida El-Baz, The Impact of Social and Economic Factors on Women's Group Formation in Egypt -- Nadje Al-Ali, Feminism and Contemporary Debates in Egypt -- Haya al-Mughni, From Gender Equality to Female Subjugation: The Changing Agendas of Women's Groups in Kuwait -- Nancy Lindisfarne, Women Organized in Groups: Expanding the Terms of the Debate

'As an anthropologist and development consultant working with women, I find this book very useful. It succeeded in describing constraints to women's groups and in presenting much information on their operation; both topics had excellent documentation ... Academics and practitioners working on Middle Eastern women should have this book, and upper-level classes on women and/or development could use it.'Journal of Anthropological Research' 'Organizing Women' sparks again the debate on women in the Middle East through a plurality of voices - Middle Eastern and non - searching for one Middle Eastern identity, or one womanhood identity, but trying to give voice to the variety of women's experiences across culture, class and religion.'Cambridge Anthropology 'Organizing Women offers the reader a rich collection of articles not only because it focuses on a 'cutting edge' topic in gender studies and development but also because it brings together under one cover a