Ambivalent (In)Securities: Comparing Urban Refugee Women’s Experiences of Informal and Formal Security Provision

Using feminist theories of geolegality, geopolitics, and intersectionality, this article presents Syrian refugee women’s experiences and perceptions of both formal and informal security providers in Amman and Beirut in 2016–2017. Based on qualitative data from refugee women based in these cities since the onset of the Syrian civil war, this article argues three related points regarding urban refugee women and their experiences with security providers. First, that although not gendered at the State level, refugee law is applied in gendered ways in the everyday by State and non-State security providers and that this has direct outcomes as to how refugee women perceive and access security services in their host cities. Secondly, that whilst women perceive both formal and informal security providers in ambivalent terms, they are deeply appreciative of State security presence in urban areas which seem vulnerable to tension and conflict. Lastly, in order to understand ambivalent experiences of (in)security of (in)formal security providers, we need closer examinations of the ways in which identity interacts with structures of policy, law and culture, using feminist theories of intersectionality and geolegality.