For over 20 years Zeina Zaatari, a feminist from South Lebanon, has worked on gender and racial justice in Arab and Arab American communities both within academic and non-profit spaces in programming and producing knowledge. Most recently, she worked as Research Director at Political Research Associates, an organization that studies the US Right to support social justice organizing. Previously, she taught courses in Anthropology and Gender and Sexuality at several universities and worked as the Regional Director for the MENA Program at Global Fund for Women (2004-12) where she managed a diverse grantmaking program to support women’s and trans movements in the Middle East and North Africa. Zeina earned her PhD in Cultural Anthropology with an emphasis in Feminist Theory from the University of California at Davis, with dissertation fieldwork focusing on women’s groups and activists in South Lebanon. Zeina serves as the Associate Editor for the Middle East and Africa (northern and sub-Saharan) for the Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures. She is a trainer and mentor for The Muslim Women in the Media Training Institute supporting journalism graduate students and junior journalists in better coverage and representation of Muslim women and their issues. She is a co-founder and member of the Training to Engaged Research Group that provides training and mentorship to junior faculty and graduate students in mostly national universities in the Arab region on how to conceptualize research projects, draft research proposals, conduct the research, analyze the data, and get published.
Her most recent publications include a chapter on “Sexual Rights Movement: Middle East and North Africa” in Sexualities in the Middle East edited by John Michael Ryan and Helen Rizzo (forthcoming), “Lebanon” in Arab Family Studies: Critical Reviews edited by Suad Joseph (2018, Syracuse University Press), “Social Movements and Revolution” in A Companion to the Anthropology of the Middle East, edited by Soraya Altorki (2015, Wiley-Blackwell), and “Desirable Masculinity/Femininity and Nostalgia of the “Anti-Modernity”: Bab el-Hara Television Series as a Site of Production” in Sexuality and Culture (2014). She is co-editing with Suad Joseph the Handbook of Women in the Middle East (Expected 2020, Routledge). Additionally, she has authored several commissioned research publications including: “Unpacking Gender: The Humanitarian Response to the Syrian Refugee Crisis in Jordan” (2014, Women’s Refugee Commission).
Zeina joined the ArabAmCC in January 2019
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Advancing Women's Rights in Conflict Zones: Case Studies of Select Regions in the Arab World
Un Economic and Social Commission of West, Asia, NY (in Arabic) [2007] -
The Culture of Motherhood: An Avenue for Women's Civil Participation
Journal of Middle East Women's Studies 2 (1): 33-64 [2006] -
In the Belly of the Beast: Struggling for Non-Violent Belonging
The MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies, special issue Gender, Nation and Belonging: Arab and Arab American Feminist Perspectives, 5 (Spring): 75-87 [2005] -
A Space for Diversity: North American Muslim Women's Hijab "Review of Sajida Sultana Alvi, Homa Hoodfar and Shella McDonough (eds.)
The Muslim Veil in North American: Issues and Debates. Toronto, Canada: [2004] -
Lebanese Country Report
Women's Rights in the Middle East and North Africa: Citizenship and Justice, Freedom House, Inc. and Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc. [2005]