My dissertation, entitled “Transnational Politics Beyond the Arab Uprisings. Egyptian Activism in Vienna and Paris”, supervised by Catherine Wihtol de Wenden and Stephan Procházka, focused on Egyptian migrant activism in Paris and Vienna during and after the Arab Uprisings and received the Award of Excellence 2016 from the Austrian Ministry of Science, Research & Economy.
My Marie Curie project SYRMAGINE (2017-2019) analysed the ways in which Syrian refugees undertake and experience (im)mobility and why. It focussed on migration decision-making processes of Syrian urban refugees settling in two of Syria’s neighbouring countries (Turkey and Lebanon) and examined how their imaginations of Europe affect their attitudes to seek asylum in European countries. A paper reflecting on the fieldwork process of SYRMAGINE and ethical considerations won the IMISCOE Best Paper Award 2019.
As part of the Horizon2020 project MAGYC and its work package ‘Comparing Crisis’, I studied (forced) migration governance and dynamics of South–South migration flows in North Africa, the Middle East and the Horn of Africa and the construction of crisis discourse.
My current Elise Richter project SYREALITY (2022-2026) focuses on drivers of (im)mobility and migration decision-making processes of Syrian refugees in Europe. I am also leading a project entitled TIES (Teaching Immigration in European Schools, 2020-2023) which aims at bringing migration research to European schools. You can learn more about the projects in the subsections.
My research has been supported by a PhD Completion Fellowship from the University of Vienna (2015-2016), a postdoctoral fellowship from OxPo (Sciences Po, 2016-2017), a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship (2017-2019), a National Geographic Explorer grant (2020-2022), an Elise Richter Grant from the Austrian Science Fund (2022-2026), and by conference grants from the Amsterdam Centre for European Studies (2019), Nuffield College and the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford (2017).