The conundrums of post-Oslo Palestine: Gendering Palestinian citizenship

Abstract

This article reviews the feminist theorization of the concept of citizenship in an attempt to contextualize it in a situation where the basic ingredients for a sovereign state do not exist. The formation of the Palestinian Authority included the reconstruction of the Palestinian ‘imagined’ community within which approaches to gender policies were reformulated to suit a new era. However, the feminist use of the concept of citizenship itself comes into question under conditions of prolonged Occupation. In this analysis, I submit that while women’s NGOs and grass-roots organizations have an important role to play in creating space for women to politicize their demands in advocating full citizenship rights, there are serious limits to what institutions of civil society can achieve when the basic foundations for the state are in a precarious situation.