Reimagining space: How Sudanese women are reinventing feminist activism in times of war

It is in this spirit that this article explores women’s situation through the lens of “space,” showing how Sudanese women have reinvented collective work. This is not merely a one-off response to extreme circumstances, but a conscious reconstruction of the spaces that the patriarchal system seeks to dismantle. We identify three interconnected levels:

• The self: a fundamental space of resilience and resistance.
• Place: a space for organization and resource management.
• Relationships: a space for redefining collective work and weaving social networks of solidarity and resistance.

The interplay between these levels creates a constant arena of conflict between the logic of patriarchal domination and women’s efforts to preserve and protect life.

Historical context

The feminist movement in Sudan

To understand Sudanese women’s ability to create spaces of resistance during this war, one must look back at how feminist networks have formed over the decades. This is not a rigid division, but a framework for understanding how collective experiences have accumulated and enabled the continuity of feminist action, despite political upheavals.

This trajectory can be understood through three interconnected phases: 1) resilience under the authoritarian regime; 2) resistance and revolution; 3) the post-war period of 2023.

1. Resilience under the authoritarian regime (1989–2018): feminist organization in more discreet forms

Under the country’s authoritarian Islamist regime, public spaces were systematically curtailed, and civil and political activities routinely stifled. Yet the feminist movement did not disappear. It shifted towards more discreet and unobtrusive forms: maintaining networks, providing mutual support, and preserving knowledge and collective memory.

This was not a phase of expansion, but a period of latent consolidation of bonds of trust and networks of solidarity, which would go on to play a crucial role.

2. Resistance and revolution (2018–2023): Sudanese women’s engagement with the public sphere

With the outbreak of the Sudanese revolution, the feminist movement made a massive impact on the public sphere. Women took centre stage in the demonstrations and grassroots organizational structures.

Feminist discourse placed issues affecting women—the body, the environment, and social and economic marginalization—at the heart of the political agenda, challenging the traditional separation of struggles. This period was also marked by significant organizational expansion: the emergence of university and regional groups, the decentralization of the movement, and the creation of specialized initiatives that offered diversity and flexibility to feminist work after decades of control over women’s bodies and lives.

3. After the 2023 war: preserving and containing to survive: collective memory and continuity of feminist action

With the outbreak of war, preserving collective memory and ensuring the continuity of feminist action has become an existential necessity. Feminist emergency centres, psychological support networks, and economic empowerment initiatives—both in Sudan and within the diaspora—have become vital spaces, combining material aid with the rebuilding of social ties.

These initiatives have not been limited to responding to emergencies: they have also provided safe spaces to process trauma, share survival strategies, and resist the isolation that the patriarchal system seeks to impose.

Furthermore, these spaces have helped to bring women’s specific issues, such as reproductive health needs and access to sanitary pads, to the forefront of political recognition. This has prompted humanitarian responses and media coverage, giving them greater attention in the face of a dominant culture that has long shrouded these issues in shame and silence.

Thus, feminist initiatives have evolved from temporary aid tools into sustainable structures of resistance and collective organization. Supported by networks of trust forged over years of revolution, they enable the feminist movement to persist despite displacement, violence, and the collapse of essential services.

Redefining the conflict

War as a tool of patriarchy

The 2023 war in Sudan reveals that armed conflicts are not merely a breakdown in security or politics, but are a structural tool deployed by the patriarchal system to reshape the public sphere and curtail the spaces that had accumulated collective power in previous years. The conflict is not limited to attacks on bodies or places; it extends to an attempt to unravel the social fabric and control everyday relationships and spaces.

From this perspective, war is not merely a physical confrontation, but a struggle for life itself: for the ability to organize ourselves, both individually and collectively, and for the chance to reclaim and reinvent the spaces that the patriarchal system seeks to fragment.

In this context, we, Sudanese women, face the conflict across three interdependent levels—the self, place and relationships—where two opposing logics clash:

• The logic of domination:

It seeks to transform human beings into instruments and resources. It mobilizes direct violence, seizes spaces, and imposes hierarchies within women’s networks themselves to perpetuate hegemony and to reduce possibilities for collective action.

• The logic of life:

It places care and solidarity at the heart of action. It enables feminist practices to revitalize collective capacity to persevere, to reorganize relationships and meaning, and to build practical alternatives that ensure the continuity of life and dignity.

War tends to shrink feminist space and make individual survival an absolute priority. Yet women have responded to this contraction by recreating their spaces in a pragmatic and flexible way: mutual support networks, women’s emergency centres, economic empowerment initiatives, and collective psychological support. These practices are not merely emergency responses: they are tools for rebuilding life itself through resistance, an affirmation of women’s right to organize and to preserve their individual and collective capacity for action.

By understanding conflict as a battle for life itself, the need arises to deconstruct its concrete dimensions within women’s everyday experience. Resistance does not begin solely in the public sphere: it first originates within, in the self as the primary space that is targeted, and as the place where the capacity to resist is reorganized. The three levels—the self, space and relationships—can thus be seen as interdependent trajectories through which feminist action is reconfigured in times of war.

The self as space

Daily resistance and reorganization

At the heart of the conflict, the self—body and mind—becomes the primary space of resistance. War does not merely aim for material destruction, it seeks to disrupt the inner self: to undermine a sense of security, to shatter the rhythm of time, to weaken the capacity to make sense of things. Consequently, ordinary acts of survival—protecting one’s body, regulating one’s energy, preserving one’s physical and mental health—are transformed into tangible acts of resistance that restore women’s power to act.

The body is the physical manifestation of the self, the primary arena where power and loss are inscribed. In contexts of violence, forced displacement, and insecurity, preserving one’s body, regaining the ability to move, and organizing the details of daily life become political acts: they are ways of negotiating with reality and limiting its hold.

As for the psyche, it is not merely a vessel for emotions, but an analytical and political tool. By acknowledging its vulnerability, the self devises concrete strategies to cope with daily pressures. As Judith Butler points out, vulnerability is not an obstacle, but a form of political power: it reveals our shared common essence and opens the possibility of building support networks based on a shared understanding of material and emotional realities.

Thus, feminist work begins neither solely on the streets, nor solely within formal organizations. It arises first from within: from reconnecting with the body, from granting the psyche the right to take its time, and from protecting it against constant exhaustion. The self is then reclaimed as the primary space of resistance, and as a prerequisite for any possible collective action.

In the context of war, direct forms of violence are concentrated on women’s bodies, targeting them in particular through sexual violence. Estimates from the United Nations Population Fund indicate that millions of women in Sudan are at risk of gender-based violence, while the vulnerability of displaced persons, refugees and migrants is worsening with the collapse of health and social services. In a society marked by a culture of silence and shame, many survivors face the psychological and physical aftermath of violence alone, in relentless isolation.

However, feminist initiatives focused on reproductive and sexual health have emerged, seeking to address these needs despite scarce resources. In this context, researcher Hadeel Bandari documents the role of these initiatives in her article “Women’s Health Centre – Reproductive and Sexual Health Initiatives in the War in Sudan,” (in Arabic) highlighting that

“Since the outbreak of war in Sudan on 15 April, initiatives in the field of sexual and reproductive health have emerged as a vital form of emergency humanitarian response… They have not merely been a health-based response, but a profound act of resistance affirming the centrality of the care economy as an alternative that redefines the priorities of survival and dignity.” (Inter Pares translation)

Alongside confronting direct violence, women have also resisted the “soft” violence perpetrated against the self by building networks of collective mutual aid: spaces for healing and psychological support, digital platforms that have reconnected what the war had scattered. Through these initiatives, issues of mental health have been politicized and linked to resistance and recognized as an essential condition for continuity of resilience and action.

Space as a place

Organizing life and managing resources

Place is not merely a geographical concept; it is a physical, cognitive and emotional experience, accumulated over time and through relationships. Forced displacement and the collapse of infrastructure deprive women not only of a roof over their heads, but also of the resources and knowledge painstakingly built up to manage daily life: safe routes, locations of resources, local neighbourhood networks and tools of domestic labour.

This spatial anxiety constitutes an essential dimension of the Sudanese feminist experience. Space is not experienced here as a fixed geographical reality, but rather as a psychological and social memory passed down from generation to generation. In this context, it no longer appears as a stable container, but as an unsettled journey, constantly being redrawn. Reconfiguring space, even in its provisional forms, becomes a collective act of resistance. With the war, homes, schools, and shelters have been transformed into centres of organization and mutual support, where care, education and health and psychological support come together.

In her article “In Search of a Small Space for Us in a World That Is Falling Apart,” (in Arabic) Anab Aliman writes:

“In half a century of independence, Sudan has enjoyed little more than a decade of peace. No sooner does one war end than another begins… This failure has bequeathed to every Sudanese person, wherever and whenever they may be, a history of displacement and perpetual departure. Departure to expand, or, conversely, flight, exile, death and destruction in the wake of conflict. On both an individual and collective level, the Sudanese people still survive today through movement and departure…” (Inter Pares translation)

This sense of spatial anxiety is also reflected in practical changes: homes and shelters become spaces for organizing daily life, where the minutiae of life under bombardment and in exile are managed. Najlaa Altoum describes this in her article “Neighbours Without Borders” (in Arabic):

“Faced with a war machine determined to tear apart the social fabric, a WhatsApp group is waging a quiet but stubborn counter-offensive. While war seeks to sever society’s continuity, fragmenting it into hostile tribes and helpless victims, this virtual group stubbornly strives to create continuity at the very heart of the rupture. It rejects the logic of war that reduces them to isolated bodies doomed to violence or to numbers in displacement registers, and reaffirms their identity as neighbours, as a community, with a shared history and memory. This daily resistance is evident in the simplest of gestures: a reassuring message at sunrise, a modest donation to care for a sick person, a question about a neighbour’s children. It is a battle against oblivion and division: every message becomes a bridge over the abyss of uprooting, every complete recitation of the Quran a declaration that care and solidarity are the only paths to salvation. In times of peace, the ‘fund’ and ‘first-aid kit association’ schemes came to the aid of women in the neighbourhood. Today, in times of war, new forms of mutual aid must be devised. The group, at its core, is a cooperative of resilience, asserting that true belonging lies not in a geographical place, but in a collective consciousness that refuses defeat.” (Inter Pares translation)

The role of space is no longer limited to providing physical shelter. Digital spaces have become its political and social extension, enabling women to reorganize communication, exchange information, and coordinate responses. Thus, whether physical or virtual, these places become living territories of resistance, revealing women’s ability to reshape daily life in times of war, despite fragility and constraints.

Relationships as space

Care and collective action

With the war, the burden of care has intensified to an unprecedented degree, driven by economic collapse, the destruction of infrastructure, and widespread displacement and exile. Feminist action is no longer confined to the domestic sphere: it extends into the public sphere, encompassing the organization of accommodation, food provision, and care for children and the elderly, as well as coordination with humanitarian initiatives. These practices are not merely a matter of ‘natural’ duty; they become political acts of resistance, exposing the logic of patriarchal domination and rebuilding collective capacity to resist.

In a roundtable discussion (in Arabic) between Sudanese feminists published by Farida Magazine, Khalda addresses this point:

“One of the most striking phenomena observed in relatively safe areas is the additional burden placed on women hosting displaced people. Many families in these regions have opened their homes to people fleeing war zones, and it is often women who shoulder the bulk of the responsibility for hosting them: preparing meals, organizing daily life, and caring for children and the elderly.” (Inter Pares translation)

In the same conversation, Huda adds:

“The care work carried out by women—at home, in public spaces, in women’s emergency rooms or within civil society initiatives—has been essential to ensuring collective survival since the start of the war, particularly in besieged regions or those deprived of services. Women and girls have played vital roles: cooking with limited resources, caring for children and the elderly, organizing accommodation, and managing humanitarian initiatives.” (Inter Pares translation)

In this context, care emerges as an instrument of political resistance. The patriarchal system seeks to transform emotional bonds within the family into exploitative relationships, appropriating women’s time and energy. Yet thanks to women’s constant invention of survival strategies, this space also becomes a place where collective strength is nurtured. Care roles thus cease to be mere domestic obligations: they become a vital political issue.

The feminist space

A laboratory for reimagining the world

Across the three levels—the self, space and relationships—it becomes clear that what Sudanese women built during the war was not a matter of piecemeal responses, but an integrated system for the reproduction of life. The feminist space becomes more than a space of support: it is a living laboratory for reimagining the world itself. Within it, women redefine resistance and organization as everyday practices of protecting and regenerating life.

Thus, the feminist space is not merely a reaction to war: it is a place that rejects the logic of patriarchal submission and affirms that the logic of life—however fragile it may be—can give rise to a different future. Open to questioning, these spaces enable women to engage in a critical dialogue with reality and to understand that liberation is an ongoing process of deconstruction and reconstruction, on the level of the self, relationships, and spaces.

From this perspective, the feminist movement serves as a platform for reimagining life, where these three levels intertwine to form a permanent network of resistance. This vision resonates with feminist struggles in Sudan, Palestine, Western Sahara, the Congo and elsewhere, affirming a shared purpose: to defend life in the face of a global patriarchal system. The exchange of knowledge, experiences and resources thus becomes essential to building a front of resistance that transcends geography.

Consequently, supporting Sudanese feminist spaces is not a matter of marginal humanitarian aid, but of political, economic and cognitive recognition. This entails:

• Political pressure to end the arming of the parties involved in the war and expose the networks that are plundering resources;
• Economic recognition of care work and sustainable support for emergency centres, feminist initiatives, and their productive projects, with equitable access to resources;
• Integration of mental health into humanitarian responses, to ensure that women can cope and actively participate;
• Exchange of organizational and feminist experiences among women living in war-torn contexts;
• Documentation of feminist experiences as a component of justice and historical memory.

Thus, collective action based on reciprocity, care and the defence of life becomes a path to rebuilding selves and communities on fairer and more sustainable foundations. From the heart of the Sudanese experience emerges a certainty: despite everything, the logic of life remains capable of opening the horizon to a different future, where human dignity is preserved and where the possibilities of living together can finally flourish.