Refugee women and the international refugee regime : the dynamics of transition

The primary purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate that refugee women who reside within refugee camps in the Third World are marginalized by a state centric international refugee regime at both the macro (systemic) and micro (Third World refugee camp) levels. This marginalization threatens their physical survival and forces refugee women into conditions where they are unable to maintain autonomous, independent, and culturally diverse existences. By examining the development of the international refugee regime at the systemic level and by looking at four refugee camp case studies, it is demonstrated that refugee women's concerns are subordinated to the interests of states and to the modernization imperative inherent in development initiatives. Though modern liberal Western feminism reveals the general circumstances in which refugee women live and makes attempts to redress them through international human rights law and development initiatives, it employs a monolithic framework to solve refugee women's problems and therefore continues to be part of their marginalization. Conversely, by building on postmodern notions of the right of sovereignty and the mechanism of discipline, it is demonstrated that postmodern feminism holds more potential as a perspective from which to identify and support the diverse ways in which refugee women survive. The conclusion of this thesis maintains that the uniform application of development initiatives and international human rights law can never mect all the diverse needs of refugee women especially in the context of a state centric international refugee regime. Instead, balancing and accommodating diversity and sameness is where the international refugee regime should be concentrating if it hopes to support meaningful, autonomous, and independent existences for refugee women.