Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh

Geography

Elena's research focuses on the intersections between gender, generation and religion in experiences of and responses to conflict-induced displacement, with a particular regional focus on the Middle East. She has conducted extensive research in refugee camps and urban areas including in Algeria, Cuba, Egypt, France, Jordan, Lebanon, South Africa, Syria, Sweden, and the UK. Elena is the Co-Director of UCL's Migration Research Unit, and is the coordinator of the Refuge in a Moving World research network across UCL (@RefugeMvingWrld). She is currently the PI of three multi-year research projects: firstly, a 4-year AHRC-ESRC funded project, 'Local Community Experiences of and Responses to Displacement from Syria', awarded through the Global Challenges Research Fund (see www.refugeehosts.org and @RefugeeHosts); secondly, a 5-year project funded by the European Research Council, South-South Humanitarian Responses to Displacement: Views from Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey (www.southernresponses.org and @SouthernResp); and thirdly, a 3-year project funded by the British Council-USA entitled 'Religion and Social Justice for Refugees'. Her recent publications include 'The Ideal Refugees: Gender, Islam and the Sahrawi Politics of Survival' (Syracuse University Press, 2014), 'South-South Educational Migration, Humanitarianism and Development: Views from the Caribbean, North Africa and the Middle East,' (Routledge, 2015, paperback published in 2017) and 'The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies' (co-editor, Oxford University Press, 2014). She is also co-editor, with Patricia Daley, of the forthcoming 'International Handbook of South-South Relations' (2018).