Contributor(s): Dr Aitemad Muhanna-Matar | In this talk, Dr Aitemad Muhanna-Matar will discuss her new book, which is based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork among women and men in poor households in diverse locations in Gaza. The research was conducted in the period (2007-2008) when the prolonged closure of Gaza borders and the destruction of Gaza’s political economy caused a livelihood crisis, and the majority of Gazan households became reliant on humanitarian aid. The book explores how gender and gender relations of power in Gaza are renegotiated to develop material mechanisms of coping or resistance against the livelihood crisis, providing empirical evidence of Gazan women’s capacity to actively exercise their agency and to achieve material outcomes. Aitemad Muhanna-Matar joined the Middle East Centre in November 2012 as a visiting fellow to pursue her post-doctoral research on gender, religion and sustainable human development in the Gaza Strip. Since February 2013, Aitemad has been leading the centre’s research on ‘Women’s Political Participation across the Arab region’, funded by Oxfam GB.