Article ICTs, Agency, and Gender in Syrian Activists’ Work among Syrian Refugees in Jordan Katty Alhayek 1 Abstract This article examines the work of Syrian activists with Syrian refugee women in Jordan and the relationship between their online and offline activism. Based upon fieldwork of a broader study in Jordan during the summer of 2013, including 19 in-depth interviews with feminist and humanitarian activists, this article demonstrates how they use information and communi- cation technologies (ICTs) in varying and highly specific ways according to the historical, social, and political contexts. It is the work of these on-the- ground activists who use online media as a tool to garner support, and not mere online propaganda alone, that is the key to understanding the ways in which ICTs are used to improve the lives of marginalized Syrian refu- gee women. This article also demonstrates that just as ICTs can be used by activists to further their efforts at reform and to improve the lives of women, they can sometimes be misused to misrepresent feminist progress through the propagation of essentializing cultural and gender discourses. Keywords Arab Spring, Syria, information and communication technologies, agency, social change, social media, activism, refugees 1 Doctoral Candidate in Communication, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, United States. Corresponding author: Katty Alhayek, Doctoral Candidate in Communication, University of Massachusetts- Amherst, United States. E-mail: katty.alhayek@gmail.com Gender, Technology and Development 20(3) 333–351 © 2016 Asian Institute of Technology SAGE Publications sagepub.in/home.nav DOI: 10.1177/0971852416660649 http://gtd.sagepub.com at UNIV MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST on November 30, 2016 gtd.sagepub.com Downloaded from