The Ideal Refugees Gender, Islam, and the Sahrawi Politics of Survival

Refugee camps are typically perceived as militarized and patriarchal spaces, and yet the Sahrawi refugee camps and their inhabitants have consistently been represented as ideal in nature: uniquely secular and democratic spaces, and characterized by gender equality. Drawing on extensive research with and about Sahrawi refugees in Algeria, Cuba, Spain, South Africa, and Syria, Fiddian- Qasmiyeh explores how, why, and to what effect such idealized depictions have been projected onto the international arena.