Julia Wartmann is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland at the Institute for Political Studies. She obtained her PhD in political science from the University of Basel with a thesis on the gender-equality reforms in the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. Her work, which challenges universal concepts like equality, agency and patriarchy, is situated at the intersection of international relations and gender studies. Her background is in social and cultural anthropology and Arabic (University in Zurich) as well as International Relations of the Middle East with Arabic (University of Edinburgh). She has published in the International Feminist Journal of Politics, as well as in several edited collections, including, Utopianism in the Middle East and North Africa, edited by Thomas Pierret and Simon Wolfgang Fuchs (EUP).

• AcknowledgementsTerritorial Development of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, 2012–2026Chronology of Key EventsIntroduction: gender discourse and the politics of freedom in the DAANES1. From state feminism to revolution: women’s rights and institutional change in Syria2. The Free Woman: fashioning bodies and minds in the fight against patriarchy3. The Other Woman: the role of multiculturalism in minoritising women4. The Changed Woman: what does it mean to be free?Conclusion: Is the DAANES treading an exceptional path to liberation?Epilogue: the struggle continues, gender politics in post-Assad SyriaBibliographyBibliography mapsIndex

Julia Wartmann is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland at the Institute for Political Studies. She obtained her PhD in political science from the University of Basel with a thesis on the gender-equality reforms in the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. Her work, which challenges universal concepts like equality, agency and patriarchy, is situated at the intersection of international relations and gender studies. Her background is in social and cultural anthropology and Arabic (University in Zurich) as well as International Relations of the Middle East with Arabic (University of Edinburgh). She has published in the International Feminist Journal of Politics, as well as in several edited collections, including, Utopianism in the Middle East and North Africa, edited by Thomas Pierret and Simon Wolfgang Fuchs (EUP).

• AcknowledgementsTerritorial Development of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, 2012–2026Chronology of Key EventsIntroduction: gender discourse and the politics of freedom in the DAANES1. From state feminism to revolution: women’s rights and institutional change in Syria2. The Free Woman: fashioning bodies and minds in the fight against patriarchy3. The Other Woman: the role of multiculturalism in minoritising women4. The Changed Woman: what does it mean to be free?Conclusion: Is the DAANES treading an exceptional path to liberation?Epilogue: the struggle continues, gender politics in post-Assad SyriaBibliographyBibliography mapsIndex