Description
Colonial histories embedded within the global migration system shape contemporary perceptions of refugee women, often casting them as "vulnerable victims," "beggars," or "humanitarian objects" rather than recognizing them as actors entitled to rights under international law. These perceptions restrict their political agency, relegating them to "death worlds" and quasi-open-air prisons in third countries of asylum, where they are systematically excluded from socio-political and economic life, even in the absence of formal detention. This exclusion underscores the feminist International Relations (IR) theory principle that "the personal is international," illustrating how international status limits refugee women’s ability to participate politically. Drawing on ethnographic research, this paper explores the innovative spatial interventions developed by self-identified feminist and women’s organizations within the British refugee sector to bolster refugee women’s political authorship and autonomy, even before they secure legal status in the UK. These interventions include: (1) feminist grassroots organizing that fosters networking and community-building independently from refugees’ ethnic communities, often dominated by men; (2) workshops and lectures designed to enhance refugee women's communication skills and body language, facilitating engagement with media and public officials, understanding of the UK asylum system, and articulation of political messages; and (3) including refugee women in political rallies and events to amplify their voices and recognize their agency. Such strategies counter the stereotypical representation of non-Western women as passive and backward, fostering solidarity between local and foreign women and challenging global hierarchies within the study and practice of international politics. By doing so, these interventions disrupt hegemonic narratives of "white women saving brown women from brown men" (Spivak, 1993).
