Challenging Dominant Approaches, Centering Marginalized Perspectives: New Writings on Gender, War, and Revolution in the Middle East

Abstract Debates on gender, war, and revolution in the Middle East are not new. The question of gender in the region has moved the imaginaries of academics, administrators, policymakers, journalists and activists throughout the decades, if not centuries. There is a similarly vast amount of literature on war and revolution in a region that has often been seen, and continues to be seen, through a lens shaped by a disproportional focus on conflict and violence. Many have brought the two perspectives together, discussing the nexus of gender, war, and revolution in the Middle East. This article is the introduction to a roundtable, which consists of three articles on gender, revolution, and war in Afghanistan, Iran, and Syria and contributes to this long-standing tradition of debates on the topic, offering unique perspectives on an oft-discussed area. Together, the three articles that make up this roundtable stand out for the broad range of their methodological approaches, their challenging of dominant approaches and simplifying binaries, and their efforts to highlight and counter the sidelining of marginalized perspectives.