I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss issues and ideas which have for many years been of my research interest. This research is the result of a lifetime passion for political science, lived experiences of migrants, and women’s issues. This project has a broad interdisciplinary scope, discussing honour within the boundaries of political science, gender studies, international comparative studies, philosophy and policy.
First and foremost, I acknowledge the several personal challenges I had in the first year of this project, starting this project on a part-time capacity and without a scholarship. From the second year onwards, however, this research was supported by the Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship. I am grateful for this research grant. Thanks to the support of this scholarship, I have been able to complete this research in the equivalent of four and a half years of full-time research at the University of Western Australia. I also received additional support for my field work in Sydney through the Graduate Research School Travel Awards.
I would like to thank the University of Western Australia for the opportunities and resources it provides and all those who helped me to use them – Reid library staff, the Graduate Research School staff as well as our colleagues and staff from the School of Social Sciences. I would like to thank my supervisors Professor Samina Yasmeen and Dr Renae Barker for their support and for working around the clock to meet research deadlines. After I was appointed to a lecturing position at UWA it was additionally challenging to bring this ambitious project to completion. I thank them for their patience. I also thank all academics and students from our school and other disciplines, who played an important role in my academic development and throughout these years of research: Seth Appiah-Mensah, Raisa Akifyeva, Ridwan Ridwan, Giulia Marchetti, Atbin Mahabbati, Isaac Frimpong, Isaac Mensah, Apriwan Apriwan, Amjed Al-Masaoodi, Sheryl Makara, Ella Prihatini, Azim Zahir, Leila Ben Mchareck, Ke Zhu, Ratih Kabinawa, Sahar Kiarashi, Duong Thuy Hang, Valentina Utari, Shevaun Drislane, Jacob Broom, Troy Lee-Brown, Joshua McDonnell, Mona Chettri, Dominic Dagbanja, Yu Tao, Greg Acciaioli, Richard Vokes, Jeannette Taylor, Jie Chen, Katie Atwell, Ky Gentry, Kelly Gerard, Amin Saikal, Thritty Bhanja and Kirsten Martinus. I also would like to thank our head of school Professor Amanda Davies for her understanding, and for alleviating my workload in the semester prior to the submission of this work.
I would also like to acknowledge and thank Professor Cristina Rocha from Western Sydney University for her generosity and for supporting me as Visiting Fellow at Western Sydney University during my field work in Sydney in 2019.
The support of many other friends has been indispensable for the completion of this project. I would like to thank Colonel Michael Brennan for his friendship and support throughout the years, Dr. Anita Williams for reading an early draft of chapter 1 and for our invaluable discussions about Foucault’s episteme within gender studies.
In conclusion, I thank all my participants and community leaders who found time to share their views with me, and sit down and talk, at times over of a cup of hot drink. I am grateful for all kinds of help received by them and for their generosity with their time. The privacy terms of this research do not allow me to name them, but I remember them, and their invaluable input, and I am grateful to them. With this book I accomplish a promise made to participants: that their voices will break free, and their stories will be heard across the globe. I truly hope that this book is the first step towards raising social awareness, and shifting academic discussions on women in the Global South, which will lead to policy change.