Islah Jad, Assistant Professor of Gender and Development at Birzeit University.
Islah is one of the founders of the Women’s Studies Institute at Birzeit University in 1994, and of WATC (Women’s Affairs Technical Committee) in 1992, a national coalition for women. She published many works on the Palestinian and Arab women political participation and political development. She was the co-author for the Arab Human Development Report of 2005. She obtained her PhD in Gender and Development from the Department of Development Studies, SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies –University of London) in 2004. Islah is a senior researcher on gender issues in the Arab region and Palestine; she did many consultations for different Palestinian ministries, international organizations, and NGOs. She is a senior gender trainer. Islah is an Assistant professor working in the Cultural Studies Department and the MA program on Gender and Development in the Institute of the Women’s Studies. Currently, Islah is the director of the Women’s Studies Institute at Birzeit University. She is fluent in Arabic, English, and French.
Research Project: The Politics of Group Weddings in Palestine: Political and Gender Tensions
Links: www.birzeit.edu/wsi
Selected Publications:
* The ‘NGOisation’ of the Arab Women’s Movement, IDS Bulletin, Sussex University Press, October 2003.
* Mobilization without Sovereignty in the Oslo Period, in Sherifa Zuhur, Women and Gender in the Islamic World, Berkeley: UCIA and UC Press, 2003.
* Islamist Women of Hamas: A New Women’s Movement? In Fereshteh Nouraie-Simone (ed.) On Shifting Ground; Muslim Women in a Global Era, Feminist Press, 2005.
* Women at the Cross-Roads, (in Arabic), Muwatin Institute for the Study of Democracy. Palestine.
* Arab Human Development Report (2005): Women’s Empowerment, UNDP, New York. Launched on December 2006.
