The wives and mothers of heroes: Evolving identities of Palestinian refugee women in Lebanon

Abstract

This paper explores the impact that being ‘the wives and the mothers of heroes’ has had on Palestinian women's identity in the camps of Lebanon. It asks how these women are creating identities for themselves out of the arid landscape of exile. The key question posed in this paper is one of self-definition. How do women refugees address the dilemma of ‘identifying themselves as Palestinian in a world in which there is no longer a country called Palestine?’ Through the testimonies of individual refugee women, I examine the process of identity formation for women in terms both of change on the ground and change in the refugees' own feelings, behaviour and coping mechanisms, and also in the context of a national narrative of suffering and heroism which has been defined largely according to masculine values.