Paper details
| Paper authors | Samah Halwany |
| In panel on | How can humanitarians leverage the experiences of persons with disabilities in humanitarian contexts (Roundtable) |
| Paper presenter(s) will be presenting |
In-Person / |
Abstract
This presentation analyses how leadership emerges among Syrian refugee women with physical disabilities in temporary protection in Gaziantep, Türkiye— as a knowledge-based learning process. Their leadership is examined as part of a broader analysis across nine categories shaping social inclusion, including wellbeing (education, employment, healthcare), familyhood, and adaptation to new spaces and crises (post-conflict and earthquake).
A constructivist grounded theory approach is used to analyse the actions and strategies these women employ in relation to leadership in private and public spaces. Often framed as needing care or as volunteers in humanitarian settings, these women begin to assert their values when given opportunities to exercise basic rights, revealing the layered barriers they face in the process. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory helps map how multifaceted factors intersect across micro, meso, and macro levels. The informal structure of Rosabeth Moss Kanter's power is used to reinterpret the four keys of empowering (opportunity, information, support, and resources) in forming leadership outside social institutions.
Rather than fixed outcomes, empowerment, resilience, and self-determination are treated as dynamic, relational processes. The presentation calls for inclusive, forward-looking infrastructures that nurture leadership among refugee women with disabilities, enabling them to stake a claim to equitable inclusion in humanitarian systems.
Key words
Leadership, intersectionality of conflict, gendered physical disability, social inclusion
