Sudanese Women Refugees

This book examines the social, cultural, economic, and political transformations that have occurred among southern Sudanese women refugees as they experience life in Cairo, Egypt.  It intends to show how these women use their newly acquired skills and knowledge to challenge their past and to challenge the image of women refugees as victims and dependents.  The author counters previous literature’s tendency to categorize these women as victimized, dependent and backwards, rather than recognizing their strength and contributions to their new societies. 

Jane Kani Edward is an External Associate, Centre for Refugee Studies, York University, Toronto.

“Jane Kani Edward’s Sudanese Women Refugees makes an important contribution to the literature on women refugees in Africa, focusing on the experiences of South Sudanese women who found refuge in Cairo, Egypt, and emphasizing the agency exercised by these women to cope and come to terms with their new lives. A focus on women in the literature about the world’s swelling numbers of refugees is still rare, despite the fact that women and children make up the overwhelming majority of the uprooted. What is particularly original in Edward’s book is its analysis of the relations between the South Sudanese men and women living as refugees in Cairo, as well as its analysis of the relations between the host country’s population and the women who have fled South Sudan to Egypt. Given the continuing turmoil in the Sudan and given the continuing depiction of African women refugees as nothing but victimized, Edward’s book is extremely timely.” –Ruth Roach Pierson, Professor Emerita, The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto

 

“[Kani Edwards] brings an insider’s richness into the analysis of the predicament of refugee women. This is an important contribution to refugee studies in general and to the study of Sudanese refugees in particular.” –Katarzyna Grabska, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex