Prof Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh

Prof. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh’s research examines experiences of and responses to conflict-induced displacement, with a particular focus on diverse forms of Southern-led responses to displacement and a regional focus on the Middle East and North Africa. 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 Founder and Director of the Institute of Advanced Studies Refuge in a Moving World research network across UCL (@RefugeMvingWrld). She is currently the PI of a multi-sited project funded by the European Research Council, South-South Humanitarian Responses to Displacement: Views from Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey (www.southernresponses.org and @SouthernResp). Between 2016-2021, she was PI of a 4-year AHRC-ESRC funded project, 'Local Community Experiences of and Responses to Displacement from Syria' (see www.refugeehosts.org and @RefugeeHosts), and between 2017-2020, she was joint PI of a 3-year project funded by the British Council-USA entitled Religion and Social Justice for Refugees. Elena is currently  Co-I on the AHRC Network Plus programme, Imagining Futures through [Un]Archived Pasts, where she is jointly leading the Baddawi Camp Lab with Yousif M. Qasmiyeh. Elena is External Affiliate Convenor of the South-South Forum at Dartmouth College, and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Exeter.

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), The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies (co-editor, Oxford University Press, 2014), the Handbook of South-South Relations (co-editor, Routledge, 2018, pb 2020), Refuge in a Moving World: Refugee and migrant journeys across disciplines (editor, UCL Press, 2020 - Open Access), and 'Recentering the South in Studies of Migration' (the introduction to the special issue of Migration and Society of the same title).

In 2018, Elena was awarded the Provost’s Established Career Academic Public Engagement Award for “catalysing the development of UCL-wide public engagement activities in relation to support for refugees and displaced people and the impact of [her] own research on humanitarian policy and practice.” In 2015, Elena was awarded a 2015 Philip Leverhulme Prize in recognition of 'the achievement of outstanding researchers whose work has already attracted international recognition and whose future career is exceptionally promising.' In 2013, she was awarded the Lisa Gilad Prize by the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) for 'the most innovative and thoughtful contribution to the advancement of refugee studies' in 2011 and 2012 (in recognition of her article 'The pragmatics of performance: putting 'faith' in aid in the Sahrawi refugee camps').

Elena is Co-Editor of the new journal, Migration and Society, with Mette Berg (UCL-IOE).

See Elena's Academia.edu page here

See Elena's ResearchGate page here

Twitter: @RefugeMvingWrld and @RefugeeHosts

Website: www.refugeehosts.org and www.southernresponses.org

Professional History

2018 (1 Oct) - Professor of Migration and Refugee Studies, University College London

2016 (1 Oct) - Reader in Human Geography, University College London

2014 (1 Sep) – 2016 (31 Sep) Lecturer in Human Geography, University College London

2014 (Jan – Aug), Senior Research Officer, Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford

2010 – 2013, Departmental Lecturer in Forced Migration, Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford

2010 – 2012, Director of the RSC International Summer School in Forced Migration, Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford

2009 – 2010, Senior Teaching Fellow in Development Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

2008 – 2009, Research Fellow, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Education

2009, DPhil International Development, University of Oxford

2003, MA International Relations, University of New South Wales

2002, MSc Gender and Development, London School of Economics, University of London

2000, BA(Hons), MA Social and Political Sciences, King’s College, University of Cambridge

Sole-Authored Books

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2015 and 2017) South-South Educational Migration, Humanitarianism and Development: Views from Cuba, North Africa and the Middle East, Oxford: Routledge. *Paperback published in 2017*

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2014) The Ideal Refugees: Gender, Islam and the Sahrawi Politics of Survival, Syracuse NY: Syracuse University Press.

Edited Books and Journal Special Issues

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (ed) (2020) Refuge in a Moving World: Refugee and migrant journeys across disciplines, London: UCL Press.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E., Berg, M. & Waters, J. (eds) (2020) Special Issue on 'Recentering the South in Studies of Migration,' Migration and Society, issue 3.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. & Daley, P. (eds) (2018, pb 2020) Handbook of South-South Relations, Oxford: Routledge.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E., Loescher, G., Long, K. and Sigona, N. (eds) (2014 and 2016) The Oxford Handbook of Forced Migration and Refugee Studies, Oxford: Oxford University Press. *Paperback published in 2016*

Saunders, J., Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. and Snyder, S. (eds) (2016) Intersections of Religion and Migration: Issues at the Global Crossroads, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Lacroix, T. and Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (eds) (2013) Special Issue on “Refugee and Diaspora Memories,” Journal of Intercultural Studies, 34(6), Dec. 2013.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (ed) (2011) Special Issue on “Faith Based Humanitarianism in Contexts of Forced Migration,” Journal of Refugee Studies, 24(3), Sep. 2011.

Journal Articles

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2021) ‘The right and role of critiquing the contemporary patchwork of protection,’ International Migration, 59 (4): 261-264.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2020) 'Responding to Precarity in Baddawi Camp in the Era of Covid-19,' Journal of Palestine Studies, 49 (4) pp. 27-35. 10.1525/jps.2020.49.4.27

Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh and Yousif M. Qasmiyeh (2020) ‘Refugees’ Pandemic Responses in a Palestinian Camp in Lebanon,’ Current History, 119 (821): 349–355. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/curh.2020.119.821.349

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2020) 'Recentering the South in Studies of Migration,' Introduction to the Special Issue, Migration and Society, 3(1): 1-18.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. with J. Fiori (2020) 'Migration, Humanitarianism and the Politics of Knowledge,' Migration and Society, 3(1): 180-189.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. with F. Carella (2020) 'The Position of "the South" and "South-South migration" in Policy and Programmatic Responses to Different Forms of Migration,' Migration and Society 3(1): 203-212.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2019) 'The Changing Faces of UNRWA: From the global to the local,' Journal of Humanitarian Affairs, 1 (1) (Open access)

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2019) ‘Disasters Studies: Looking Forward,’ Disasters, 43 (S1): S36-S60

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2019) 'UNRWA Financial Crisis: The Impact on Palestinian Employees,' MERIP, 48(286):33-36.

Berg, M. and Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2018) 'Introduction: Encountering Hospitality and Hostility,' Migration and Society 1(1): 1-6.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2016) 'Refugee-Refugee Relations in Contexts of Overlapping Displacement,' International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Spotlight On "The Urban Refugee 'Crisis'"

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2016) 'On the Threshold of Statelessness: Palestinian narratives of loss and erasure,’ Journal of Ethnic and Racial Studies, 39(2): 301-321.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2016) 'Repressentations of Displacement in the Middle East,' Public Culture, 28(3): 457-473, doi:10.1215/08992363-3511586.

Gabiam, N. and Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2016) ‘Palestinians and the Arab Uprisings: Political Activism and Narratives of Home, Homeland and Home-Camp’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 43(5): 731-748, doi: 10.1080/1369183X.2016.1202750.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2015) ‘Embracing Transculturalism and Footnoting Islam in Accounts of Arab Migration to Cuba,’ Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 18(1): 19-42, doi: 10.1080/1369801X.2014.998257.

Ager, J., Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. and Ager, A. (2015) 'Local Faith Communities and the Promotion of Resilience in Contexts of Humanitarian Crisis,' Journal of Refugee Studies, 28 (2): 202- 221. [Selected by OUP in 2017 as one of 6 “highly cited articles” to showcase “the impressive body of research” published in Journal of Refugee Studies.]

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2014) ‘Transnational Abductions and Transnational Jurisdictions? The politics of “protecting” female Muslim refugees in Spain,’ Gender, Place and Culture, 21(2): 174-194.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2013) ‘The Inter-generational Politics of “Travelling Memories”: Sahrawi refugee youth remembering home-land and home-camp,’ Journal of Intercultural Studies, 34(6): 631-649. [One of 11 articles selected as an “example of outstanding research recently published in the Journal of Intercultural Studies” and included in a special Journal of Intercultural Studies Editors’ Choice Collection.]

Lacroix, T. and Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2013) ‘Refugee and Diaspora Memories: The Politics of Remembering and Forgetting,’ Journal of Intercultural Studies, 34(6): 684-696.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2013) ‘Transnational Childhood and Adolescence: Mobilising Sahrawi identity and politics across time and space,’ Journal of Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36(5): 875-895.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2012) ‘Invisible Refugees and/or Overlapping Refugeedom? Protecting Sahrawis and Palestinians Displaced by the 2011 Libyan Uprising,’ International Journal of Refugee Law, 24(2): 263-293.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2011) ‘The Pragmatics of Performance: Putting ‘faith’ in aid in the Sahrawi refugee camps,’ Journal of Refugee Studies, 24(3): 533-547. [Awarded the Lisa Gilad Prize in Forced Migration and Refugee Studies by the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM); recognised as “the most innovative and thoughtful contribution to the advancement of refugee studies” in 2011 and 2012.]

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2011) 'Faith-Based Humanitarianism in Contexts of Forced Displacement,' Journal of Refugee Studies, 24(3): 429-439.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2011) ‘Paradoxes of Refugees’ Educational Migration: Promoting self-sufficiency or renewing dependency?’ Comparative Education, 47(4): 433-447.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2011) ‘Histories of Displacement: Intersections between ethnicity, gender and class,’ Journal of North African Studies, 16(1): 31-48. [Selected as one of 18 articles published across 11 journals “to showcase the research published by the Taylor & Francis Group highlighting historical perspectives relating to the continent of Africa” as part of the 2011 Africa Day.]

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. and Qasmiyeh, Y.M. (2010) ‘Muslim Asylum-Seekers and Refugees from the Middle East and North Africa: Negotiating politics, religion and identity in the UK,’ Journal of Refugee Studies, 23(3): 294-314. [identified as a seminal piece on Islam, religious identity and asylum, and reprinted in Beckford, J. (ed.) Migration and Religion, Edward Elgar, May 2015]

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2010) ‘Education, Migration and Internationalism: Situating Muslim Middle Eastern and North African students in Cuba,’ The Journal of North African Studies, 15(2): 137-155.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2010) ‘“Ideal” Refugee Women and Gender Equality Mainstreaming: “Good Practice” for Whom?’ Refugee Survey Quarterly, 29(2): 64-84.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2009) ‘Representing Sahrawi Refugees’ ‘Educational Displacement’ to Cuba: Self-sufficient agents or manipulated victims in conflict?’ Journal of Refugee Studies, 22(3): 323-350.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2006) ‘Relocating: The Asylum Experience in Cairo,’ Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 8(2): 295-318.

Chapters

Trotta, S. and Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2022) “Religions and Forced Migration,” in The State of the Evidence in Religions and Development, edited by Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities (JLI), 65-73.

Dafa, L. M. and Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2021) “Care, Control and Crisis: Sahrawi youth as refugees and migrants,” in Rosen, R., Chase, E., Crafter, S., Glockner, V. and Mitra, S. (eds) Crisis for Whom? Critical global perspectives on childhood, care and migration, London: UCL Press (in production).

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2020) "Introduction: Refuge in a Moving World," in Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (ed) Refuge in a Moving World: Refugee and migrant journeys across disciplines, London: UCL Press.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2020) "Shifting the Gaze: Palestinian and Syrian refugees sharing and contesting space in Lebanon," in Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (ed) Refuge in a Moving World: Refugee and migrant journeys across disciplines, London: UCL Press.

Carpi, E. and Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2020) "A Sociology of Knowledge on Humanitarianism and Displacement: The cases of Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Turkey," in Salvatore, A., Hanafi, S. and Obuse, K. (eds) The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of the Middle East, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. (2020 online edition; 2021 print edition)

Carpi, E. and Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2020) "Keeping the Faith? Examining the roles of faith and secularism in "Syrian Diaspora Organisations" in Lebanon," in Dijkzeul, D. and Fauser, M. (eds) Diaspora Organisations in International Affairs, Oxford: Routledge.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2019) “Memories and Meanings of Camps (and more-than-camps),” in Farrier, D., Woolley, A., Stonebridge, L., Durrant, S. and Cox, E. (eds) Refugee Writing: Contemporary Research Across the Humanities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2018) "Southern-Led Responses to Displacement: Modes of South-South Cooperation?" in Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. and Daley, P. (eds) Handbook of South-South Relations, Oxford: Routledge.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. and Daley, P. (2018) "Introduction: Conceptualising the Global South and South-South Encounters,"in Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. and Daley, P. (eds) Handbook of South-South Relations, Oxford: Routledge.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2019) “From Roots to Rhizomes: mapping rhizomatic strategies in the Sahrawi and Palestinian refugee situations,” in Bradley, M., Milner, J. and Peruniak, B. (eds) Shaping the struggles of their times: Refugees, peacebuilding and resolving displacement. Georgetown University Press.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. and Pacitto, J. (2018 ) “Southern-led faith-based responses to refugees: insights for the global North,” in Schewel, B. and Wilson, E. (eds) Religion and European Society, Oxford: Wiley.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2018) "Ideal women, invisible girls? The challenges of/to feminist solidarity in the Sahrawi Refugee Camps," in Rosen, R. and Twamley, K. (eds) Feminism and the Politics of Childhood: Friends or Foes?, London: UCL Press.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E., Lewis, C. and Cole, G. (2017) "'Faithing' Gender and Responses to Violence in Refugee Communities: Insights from the Sahrawi Refugee Camps and the Democratic Republic of Congo," in Krause, U. and Buckley-Zistel, S. (eds) Gender, Violence and Forced Migration. Oxford: Berghahn Books.

Saunders, J., Snyder, S. and Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2016) "Introduction: Articulating Intersections at the Global Crossroads of Religion and Migration," in Saunders, J., Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. and Snyder, S. (eds) Intersections of Religion and Migration: Issues at the Global Crossroads, New York: Palgrave.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2016) “The faith-gender-asylum nexus: an intersectionalist analysis of representations of the ‘Refugee Crisis'," in Mavelli, L. and Wilson, E. K. (eds) The Refugee Crisis and Religion. Rowland and Littlefield.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2015) “The Veiling of Religious Markers in the Sahrawi Diaspora,” in J. Garnett and S. Hale (eds) Religion in Diaspora: Cultures of Citizenship, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 181-201.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. and Pacitto, J. (2015) “Writing the Other into Humanitarianism: A conversation between ‘South-South’ and ‘faith-based’ humanitarianisms,” in Z. Sezgin and D. Dijkzeul (eds) The New Humanitarianisms in International Practice: Emerging actors and contested principles, Oxford: Routledge, November 2015.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2015) '(Re)Conceptualising 'Stateless Diasporas' in the European Union,' in R. Cohen and J. Storey with N. Moon (eds) The Impact of Diasporas, Oxford Diasporas Programme and The Impact of Diasporas Programme: pp. 38-44.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2015) “The Stateless Talk Back: Palestinian narratives of home(land)” in The Oxford Diasporas Programme Collection, Oxford: Oxford Diaspora Programme.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2015) “Conflicting Missions? The politics of Evangelical humanitarianism in the Sahrawi and Palestinian protracted refugee situations,” in A. Horstmann and J-H. Jung (eds) Building Noah’s Ark: Refugee, Migrant and Religious Communities, London: Palgrave Macmillan: pp. 157-179.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. and Y.M. Qasmiyeh (2015) “Muslim Asylum-Seekers and Refugees from the Middle East and North Africa: Negotiating politics, religion and identity in the UK,” reprinted in J. Beckford (ed.) Migration and Religion, Edward Elgar.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2015) “Engendering Understandings of Faith-Based Organisations: Intersections between religion and gender in development and humanitarian interventions,” in A. Coles, L. Gray, and J. Momsen (eds) Routledge Handbook of Gender and Development, London: Routledge. pp. 560-570.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2014) “Gender and Forced Migration,” in E. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, G. Loescher, K. Long and N. Sigona (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E., Loescher, G., Long, K. and Sigona, N. (2014) ‘"Introduction: Refugee and Forced Migration Studies in Transition,” in E. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, G. Loescher, K. Long and N. Sigona (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2013) “Inter-Generational Negotiations of Religious Identity, Belief and Practice: Child, youth and adult perspectives from three cities,” in J. Garnett and Harris, A. (eds) Rescripting Religion in the City: Migration and Religious Identity in the Modern Metropolis, Farnham: Ashgate. pp. 163-176

Qasmiyeh, Y.M. and Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2013) “Refugee Camps and Cities in Conversation,” in J. Garnett and Harris, A. (eds) Rescripting Religion in the City: Migration and Religious Identity in the Modern Metropolis, Farnham: Ashgate. pp. 131-143.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2012) "Enhancing Community-Based Responses," in Zetter, R. (ed.) World Disasters Report 2012: Focus on Forced Migration and Displacement, Geneva: IFRC.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2012) “Human Rights, Activism and Migration,” The Encyclopaedia of Global Human Migration, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2012) “Diaspora,” The Encyclopaedia of Globalization, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2012) “Nomads,” The Encyclopaedia of Globalization, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2010) When the Self becomes Other: Representations of gender, Islam and the politics of survival in the Sahrawi refugee camps,” in D. Chatty and B. Findlay (Eds.) Dispossession and Displacement: Forced Migration in the Middle East and North Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 171-196.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2010) “Concealing Violence Against Women in the Sahrawi Refugee Camps: The politicisation of victimhood,” in H. Bradby and G. Lewando-Hundt (Eds.) Global Perspectives on War, Gender and Health: The Sociology and Anthropology of Suffering. Farnham: Ashgate. pp. 99-110.

Crivello, G. and Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2010) “The Ties that Bind: Sahrawi Children and the Mediation of Aid in Exile,” in D. Chatty (Ed.) Deterritorialised Afghan and Sahrawi Youth: Refugees from the Margins of the Middle East. Oxford: Berghahn Books. pp. 85-118..

Chatty, D., Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. and Crivello, G. (2010) “Identity With/out Territory: Sahrawi Refugee Youth in Transnational Space,” in D. Chatty (Ed.) Deterritorialised Afghan and Sahrawi Youth: Refugees from the Margins of the Middle East. Oxford: Berghahn Books. pp. 37-84.

Research Monographs and Policy Briefs

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (ed) (2016) Gender, Religion and Humanitarian Responses to Refugees, MRU Policy Brief.

Pacitto, J. and Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2013) Writing the 'Other' into humanitarian discourse: Framing theory and practice in South-South humanitarian responses to forced displacement. UNHCR New Issues in Refugee Research, Research Paper No. 257, July 2013.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. and Ager, A. (eds) Local Faith Communities and the promotion of resilience in humanitarian situations, RSC/JLI Working Paper 90, Oxford: Refugee Studies Centre, February 2013.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2012) Conflicting missions? The Politics of Evangelical Humanitarianism in the Western Sahara and Palestine-Israel, Working Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, April 2012.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2011) Invisible Refugees: protecting Sahrawis and Palestinians displaced by the 2011 Libyan uprising. UNHCR New Issues in Refugee Research, Research Paper no. 225.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2011) Protracted Sahrawi Displacement: Challenges and Opportunities Beyond Encampment, RSC Policy Briefing Series No. 7, Oxford University (published in Arabic, English and Spanish).

Other Publications

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2020) 'Refugee-led responses in the time of Covid-19: Preliminary reflections from North Lebanon,' Refugee Hosts, April 2020.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2019) 'The Poetics of Undisclosed Care,' Refugee Hosts, May 2019.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2019) 'Exploring refugees' conceptualisations of Southern-led humanitarianism,' Southern Responses to Displacement, May 2019.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. and Daley, P. (2018) 'Conceptualising the global South and South-South encounters,' Southern Responses to Displacement, December 2018.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2018) 'Thinking through 'the global South' and 'Southern responses to displacement: an introduction,' Southern Responses to Displacement, December 2018.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2018) 'Reflections from 'the Field': Introduction to the series,' Refugee Hosts, November 2018.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2018) 'Local Communities and Contextualising the Localisation of Aid Agenda: Introducing the Series,' Refugee Hosts, 15 January 2018.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2017) ‘Representations of Displacement: Introducing the Series,' Refugee Hosts, 1 Sep. 2017.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2017) 'Invisible (at) Night: Space, Time and Photography in a Refugee Camp,' Refugee Hosts, 1 Sep. 2017.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. and Qasmiyeh, Y.M. (2017) 'Refugee-Refugee Solidarity in Death and Dying,' 2017 Venice Bienalle Tunisian Pavillion: The Absence of Paths, May 2017.

Greatrick, A and Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2017) ''Travelling Fear' in Global Context: Exploring Everyday Dynamics of In/Security and Im/Mobility, Refugee Hosts, March 2017.

Greatrick, A and Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2017) 'The Roles of Performance and Creative Writing Workshops in Refugee-Related Research,' Refugee Hosts, March 2017.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2017)  ‘Syrian refugees in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon face an uncertain 2017’, The Conversation, 3 January 2017 (+14900 readers by October 2017)

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2016) 'Palestinian and Syrian Refugees in Lebanon: Sharing Space, Electricity and the Sky,' Refugee History, 21 December 2016

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2016) ‘Gender, Religion and Humanitarian Responses to Refugees,’ LSE Religion and the Public Sphere, 19 October 2016.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2016) 'Refugees hosting refugees,' Forced Migration Review, September 2016

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2016) 'The Intersection between Gender and Religion in Humanitarian Responses to Refugees,'The Berkley Forum (The Berkley Centre for Religion, Peace and World Affairs), 23 September 2016.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2016) 'Europe's migrant children: between belonging, happiness and discrimination,' OpenDemocracy, 22 February 2016.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. and Qasmiyeh, Y. M. (2016) ‘Refugee Neighbours and Hostipitality: Exploring the complexities of refugee-refugee humanitarianism,’ The Critique, 5 January 2016.

Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2015) 'Refugees helping refugees: how a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon is welcoming Syrians,' The Conversation, 4 November 2015. (+15000 readers by Oct. 2017)

Eliassi, B. and Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2015) 'How likely is civil war in Turkey? More rights than borders could satisfy many Kurds,' OXPOL, 16 October 2015.

Eliassi, B. and Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2015) 'How likely is civil war in Turkey?' OpenDemocracy, 15 October 2015.

Drawing on a critical theoretical perspective my work contributes to key debates surrounding refugees’ and local host community members' experiences of and responses to conflict-induced displacement; critical approaches to knowledge production in refugee and migration studies; the nature of refugee-host-donor relations, and both North-South and South-South humanitarian responses to forced migration. My research - supported by major grants and research awards from the Leverhulme Trust, AHRC-ESRC and the European Research Council - examines experiences of and responses to displacement from Syria through multi-sited research in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. At UCL, I co-direct the Migration Research Unit and direct the Refuge in a Moving World interdisciplinary research network - you can follow the events and activities of the Refuge in a Moving World research network on @RefugeMvingWrld.

Follow Elena's research and publications here.

* Local Community Experiences of and Responses to Displacement from Syria: Views from Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey (Sep. 2016 - Sep. 2021)

Over 4,4 million refugees have sought safety across Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey from the on-going Syrian conflict, with local communities, civil society groups, established refugee communities, and faith-based organisations providing essential assistance, solidarity and support to refugees. However, little is known regarding the motivations, nature and impacts of such responses to international refugee flows from conflict. This interdisciplinary and participatory research project is supported by a Large Grant (£800,000) awarded by the AHRC-ESRC, and aims to improve our understanding of the challenges and opportunities that arise in local responses to displacement, both for refugees from Syria and for the members of the communities that are hosting them in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. This project is reframing debates about the roles and experiences of local communities and refugees in contexts of conflict-induced displacement in the global South. In so doing, the research aims to inform the development of policy, practice and service provision at local, national and international levels. The project team includes Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh (PI), Co-Is Prof. Alastair Ager, Dr Anna Rowlands and Prof Lyndsey Stonebridge, Writer-in-Residence Yousif M. Qasmiyeh, and 9 local researchers in the Middle East. Follow the project on www.refugeehosts.org and through @RefugeeHosts. Selected Open Access project publications include the following: 30+ chapter edited volume, Refuge in a Moving World: Refugee and migrant journeys across disciplines; the 2019 article, 'The Changing Faces of UNRWA: From the global to the local' (Journal of Humanitarian Affairs); and a co-authored report, Religion and Social Justice for Refugees: Insights from Cameroon, Greece, Malaysia, Mexico, Jordan and Lebanon. Watch a video of the Refugee Hosts project, which has been exhibited in the IWM 'Refugees' season, here.

* South-South Humanitarian Responses to Displacement from Syria (July 2017 - Summer 2023)

With the support of a major European Research Council grant, between 2017 and 2023 I am leading a major multi-sited research project Analysing South-South Humanitarian Responses to Displacement from Syria, through fieldwork in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. This project examines how, why and with what effect Southern actors - states, civil society networks, and refugees themselves - have responded to displacement from Syria. Overall, the project aims to purposefully centralise refugees’ own experiences of and perspectives on these Southern-led initiatives. Indeed, by bringing refugees’ voices to the forefront, I aim to shed a unique light on refugees’ understandings of humanitarianism, and the extent to which they consider that diverse Southern-led responses to conflict-induced displacement can or should be conceptualised as ‘humanitarian’ programmes. In so doing, the project makes a particularly significant contribution to debates regarding the desirability and/or tensions of ‘alternative’ forms of humanitarianism which have, until now, been monopolised by Northern academic and policy perspectives. Follow us on @SouthernResp and www.southernresponses.org. Selected Open Access project publications to date include Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2020) 'Recentering the South in Studies of Migration,' Introduction to the Special Issue, Migration and Society, 3(1): 1-18; Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. with J. Fiori (2020) 'Migration, Humanitarianism and the Politics of Knowledge,' Migration and Society, 3(1): 180-189; Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. with F. Carella (2020) 'The Position of "the South" and "South-South migration" in Policy and Programmatic Responses to Different Forms of Migration,' Migration and Society 3(1): 203-212; and Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2019) ‘Disasters Studies: Looking Forward,’ Disasters, 43 (S1): S36-S60.

This ongoing ERC-funded project builds upon long-standing research into this topic, which resulted in my second monograph, South-South Educational Migration and Development: Views from the Caribbean, North Africa and the Middle East, (2015). Through multi-sited fieldwork with and about Sahrawi and Palestinian refugee students in Cuba and Libya, and following their return to the desert-based Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria and the urban Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, the book investigates the experiences of Sahrawi and Palestinian refugees during and after their time in Cuba and Libya both as a form of international migration, and as an example of South-South cooperation.

Completed Projects: Faith-Based Humanitarianism; Stateless Diasporas; and Gender, Islam and Displacement

* Faith-Based Humanitarianism in Contexts of Forced Displacement (2010-2016)

This research project examines how, why and to what effect faith-based actors – including international networks, major humanitarian organisations and local faith communities – provide assistance and protection to individuals and communities displaced by conflict. In 2011, a Special Issue of the Journal of Refugee Studies was published on “Faith Based Humanitarianism in Contexts of Forced Migration” (24(3), Sep. 2011), and more recent research funded by the Henry Luce Foundation explored the intersections between gender and faith-based responses to forced migration, with a particular focus on the gendered nature and implications of local faith communities’ responses to displacement from Syria. Between 2014-2016, field research was conducted with refugees and local faith communities in Lebanon, and an international workshop was held in 2016 to provide a space for debate and mutual learning between academics, policy-makers, practitioners and displaced persons themselves.

* (Re)Conceptualising Stateless Diasporas (2011 - 2015)

This Leverhulme-funded explored the experiences of members of two Middle Eastern stateless diasporas in four countries in the European Union: France, Italy, Sweden and the UK. In particular, it examined how Palestinians and Kurds negotiate, mobilise and/or resist notions of shared belonging in the EU, and analyses how Palestinians and Kurds who hold diverse socio-legal statuses conceptualise connections with other members of ‘their’ communities across time and space, and socio-political commitments to ‘their’ respective homelands and nationalist projects in the contemporary Middle East. Academic outputs included a Special Issue on “Refugee and Diaspora Memories,”Journal of Intercultural Studies, 34(6) (Dec. 2013), and a series of articles including 'On the Threshold of Statelessness: Palestinian narratives of loss and erasure’ (Journal of Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2016) and 'Palestinians and the Arab Uprisings: Political activism, and narratives of home, homeland and home-camp' (Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2016).

* Gender, Islam and Displacement (2010 - 2014)

Drawing upon multi-sited research in the Sahrawi refugee camps (Algeria), Cuba, South Africa, Spain and Syria, this ESRC-funded research developed a postcolonial and intersectionalist analysis to investigate the roles of gender, ethnicity and Islam in performances of the Sahrawi refugee Self and Other ‘on’ and ‘off-stage’ during interactions with secular, Christian and Muslim audiences in the refugee camps and in the international arena. In particular, it examines how, why and to what effect young Sahrawi refugees in the diaspora ‘inherit’ and reproduce an ‘official discourse’ which represents, and consequently constitutes, the Sahrawi refugee camps as ‘ideal’ spaces inhabited by ‘ideal refugees’: secular, democratic and gender equal. My book, The Ideal Refugees: Gender, Islam and the Sahrawi Politics of Survival was published by Syracuse University Press in January 2014.

Throughout my research into experiences of and responses conflict-induced displacement, I regularly engage with different academic and non-academic audiences. For instance, I have been interviewed by the BBC News, Channel 4 News, the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, and the BBC Radio 3 New Thinkers programme; my research has been cited by The Guardian; and I regularly contribute to evaluations and assessments by humanitarian organisations and agencies such as Oxfam and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). My research has been exhibited in a number of museum spaces, including as part of the 2017 Venice Biennale, the UCL-Culture Moving Objects exhibition (2019), and the Imperial War Museum’s 2020-2021 Refugee Season.

In 2018, I was awarded the Provost’s Established Career Academic Public Engagement Award for “catalysing the development of UCL-wide public engagement activities in relation to support for refugees and displaced people and the impact of [her] own research on humanitarian policy and practice.”

Faith-Based Humanitarianism

As part of this project, between 2011 and 2014, I collaborated with a 'Joint Learning Initiative' on Local Faith Communities and Resilience involving academics, policy makers, practitioners and representatives from a diversity of faith communities to explore the nature and impacts of initiatives developed by local faith communities in humanitarian situations. In addition to co-editing a major scoping report with Alastair Ager (Columbia University), I oversaw the development of a policy note and an open-access Forced Migration Online resource summary page on local faith communities and humanitarianism which were launched in 2013. In 2016, I was appointed Academic Co-Chair of a new Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities focusing on Refugees and Forced Migration. My recent publications on this matter include a piece in The Berkley Forum, an MRU Policy Brief on Gender, Religion and Humanitarian Responses to Refugees, a major research report on Religion and Social Justice for Refugees, and a coauthored 2022 chapter on “Religions and Forced Migration” in The State of the Evidence in Religions and Development, edited by Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities.

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In 2014, the JLI scoping report was acknowledged in a new UNHCR Partnership Note on faith-based organisations as ‘important to the thinking behind all areas of the follow-up to the Dialogue on Faith and Protection.’ The Special Issue of the Journal of Refugee Studies which I edited in 2011 on ‘Faith-Based Humanitarianism in Contexts of Forced Displacement’ and the policy note ‘Local faith communities and resilience in humanitarian situations’ were cited as key resources in UNHCR’s report and, previously, at UNHCR’s 2012 Dialogue.

In May 2014, I participated in an expert panel discussion at the Westminster Faith Debates on ‘Engaging Religion for Development.’

In July 2013, I was invited to contribute to The Immanent Frame – a forum established by the SSRC (Social Science Research Council)– alongside other leading figures working on the intersections between religion, secularism and the public sphere. My contribution addresses the polemics of state-led 'religious engagement' in contexts of displacement and humanitarian crises: 'Engaging Religion at the Department of State'.

The Working Paper on Local Faith Communities and the promotion of resilience in humanitarian situations, and a blog posting on the report by JLI researcher Joey Ager were referenced in The Guardian article ‘Faith-based organisations: should dogma be left out of development?’. I contributed to a debate on this subject on 23 May 2013, and some of my key insights were included in The Guardian’s debate roundup: 'Keep the Faith: 12 thoughts on dogma and development' .

In January 2013, I was awarded the Lisa Gilad Prize by the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) for my 2011 article 'The pragmatics of performance: putting 'faith' in aid in the Sahrawi refugee camps.' Awarded at each biennial meeting of the IASFM, the prize is given for 'the most innovative and thoughtful contribution to the advancement of refugee studies’ published in one of the two immediately preceding volumes of the Journal of Refugee Studies.

Gender, Youth and Forced Migration

In 2011, I presented the findings of my research in and about the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. My Policy Briefing (Protracted Sahrawi Displacement: Challenges and opportunities beyond encampment) was launched at a policy roundtable at UNHCR-Geneva, leading to a number of changes in UN- and NGO-led projects and programmes for women and children in the Sahrawi refugee camps.

UNDERGRADUATE MODULES

• GEOG3048: Migration and Transnationalism (on leave)

GRADUATE MODULES

• GEOGG201: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Global Migration (on leave)

• GEOGG205: Gender, Generation and Forced Migration (Course Convenor)

• GEOGG202: Issues in Global Migration (on leave)

Primary Supervisor:

Tyler Valiquette: Queer Migration in the Periphery: Responses to Venezuelan sexual minority refugees in Colombia and Brazil (2022-present; primary supervisor with Richard Mole, UCL Geography)

Claire Fletcher: The roles of faith-based organisations in supporting asylum-seekers in the UK (2016 – present; 1+3 ESRC Funded; primary supervisor, initially with Claire Dwyer, with Tatiana Thieme since 2020, UCL Geography)

Second Supervisor

Andrew Knight: Community-based humanitarianism: exploring refugee-to-refugee humanitarian initiatives in the context of the Syria crisis (2017 - 2022, DPU 60th Anniversary Scholarship, secondary supervisor, with Andrea Rigon, UCL-DPU)

Shayan Moftizadeh: Exploring identities among the second generation Kurdish diaspora in the UK (2016 - present; secondary supervisor, initially with Claire Dwyer, UCL Geography)

Ceri Butler: The Integration of Refugee Doctors in the UK (2015 – present; co-supervisor, with Fiona Stevenson, UCL Medical School)

Completed

Dr Diego Garcia Rodriguez: Exploring gender, sexuality and Islam: An ethnography of religious empowerment in Indonesia (2016 - 2020; secondary supervisor, with Richard Mole, CMII/SEESS)

Dr Khatereh Eghdamian: Rethinking Religion in Humanitarianism Beyond Identity Politics: Discursive representations of Syrian refugees and their effects on religious minorities in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey (2015 – 2019, ESRC-funded; primary supervisor, with Claire Dwyer, UCL Geography)

Dr Suriyah Bi: The Feminisation of Marriage: Ghar Dhamads, Generational Shifts, and Global vs. Local in Birmingham’s British-Pakistani Community (2015 – 2019, GoK-funded; primary supervisor, with Claire Dwyer, UCL Geography)

Dr Tom Brocket: Between West Bank and East Coast: Making Palestinian heritage in and from the United States (2016 - 2018, ESRC-funded; secondary supervisor, with Caroline Bressey, UCL Geography)

Dr Chloe Lewis: Rape as a Weapon of War in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: Uncovering the Elusive Male ‘Victim’(2011 – 2018, ESRC-funded; co-supervisor, with D. Chatty, University of Oxford)

Dr Kerrie Thornhill: Reconstructed Meanings of Sexual Violence in Post-Conflict Liberia (2011 - 2016, Trudeau Foundation Scholar; co-supervisor with P. Daley, University of Oxford; DPhil awarded with no changes)

AHRC Network Plus Award (2020-2024)

AHRC Development Award (2019-2020)

European Research Council Grant (ref: ASSHURED 715582) (2017-2022)

Provost’s Established Career Academic Public Engagement Award (2018)

British Council-USA (2018-2020)

AHRC-ESRC Large Project (ref: AH/P005438/1) (2016-2021)

UNHCR (2018-2020)

Philip Leverhulme Prize awarded by the Leverhulme Trust (2015)

Lisa Gilad Prize awarded by the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (2013)

The Henry Luce Foundation (2010-2011, 2014-2016 and 2018-2020)

Oxford University Press John Fell Fund (2012-2014)

Leverhulme Trust (2011-2015)

Joint Learning Initiative (2012-2014)

Oxford Department for International Development, University of Oxford (2011-2013)

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (2012)

World Bank (2010-2011)

UK Department for International Development (DfID) (2010-2011)

Commonwealth Foundation (2010-2011)

Economic and Social Research Council (2005-2009)