CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020
| Author | Akdedian, Lucien |
|---|---|
| Title | Non-Governmental Organizations Working for Women Domestic Workers in Lebanon: Their Work and its hidden stereotypes |
| Summary | This thesis focuses on the efforts of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), within the Lebanese context, towards women domestic workers (WDWs). The study examines the services two NGOs in Lebanon provide to WDWs, most of them being migrants. The central question is how NGOs operating in Lebanon challenge the status quo of women domestic worker’s marginalization in the Lebanese society, and what are the hidden stereotypes of the NGO work. The lens through which the study looks at WDWs is through the discrimination which they face due to the intersection of gender, race and class. A key pillar of WDW’s difficult situation in Lebanon is their exclusion from the labor law and from the entire legal framework. The data collection of this thesis is accomplished in three ways: through qualitative semi-structured interviews conducted virtually with NGO participants, through information collected from resources about NGOs operating in Lebanon, and via the insider position/knowledge of the author, who worked in one of the NGOs the thesis focuses on. The interviewees have experience working with WDWs, either in NGOs in Lebanon, or through their collaboration with different NGOs in Lebanon. This thesis focuses on one of the indirect services, NGOs supporting WDWs in Lebanon provide, which is awareness raising. The thesis argues that the awareness raising provided by the two NGOs being studied, KAFA and Caritas Lebanon, entails stereotypes based on gender, race and class, which in their turn reinforce and regenerate the already existing injustices. The hidden stereotypes I analyze, are those that bound the domestic work field in Lebanon to women from disadvantaged class and racial background. Moreover, I analyze the views of my seven NGO participants and demonstrate that the views of most of the participants in this research include similar hidden stereotypes parallel to the ones present within the awareness raising activities done by the two NGOs in focus. |
| Supervisor | Fodor, Eva; de Haan, Francisca |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2020/akdedian_lucien.pdf |
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