Research
Current research projects
Navigating asylum: towards a rights-based approach
This impact project aims to provide accessible information about the legal asylum procedure to strengthen asylum seekers' knowledge and capacities. This project is funded by Newcastle University Faculty Impact Fund (Dec 2023-Jul 2024)
Country-of-Origin Reports: A transitional Geography of Asylum Adjudication
This research project uncovers the transnational geographies of asylum adjudication. Working in collaboration with Dr Austin Crane (USC), I examine the production, use, and circulation of Country-of-origin information report and their role in asylum adjudication.
Past research projects
Geographies of asylum justice: the lived realities and spaces of the Danish asylum procedure (Justasylum)
This research explored the juridical border work at play in the asylum procedure. Through a feminist intersectional approach, this project uncovered how this legal process of deciding who obtains asylum is constituted spatially, carried out in practice, and experienced by the actors involved. It was funded by the European Commission, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship (Jan 2022-Dec 2023).
Precarious Protection: Syrian and Somali Struggles for Refuge in Denmark
The research project examined the changing nature of refugee protection. In the wake of recent global refugee crises, several countries have introduced new temporary protection statuses for refugees, signaling that they will be protected only temporarily. This research project interrogated these shifts in strategies of migration management in European states and their broader significance with respect to the legal provision refugee protection as enshrined in international law. This project was funded by the Irish Research Council (Oct 2019-Nov 2021).
Unsettling Refuge: Syrian Refugees' account of life in denmark
My dissertation, entitled Unsettling Refuge: Syrian Refugees’ Account of Life in Denmark, analyzed the relationships between the lived experiences of Syrian refugees and the Danish state’s efforts to contain and govern refugees across multiple countries and geographic sites. Based on 20 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Jordan and Denmark, this study unsettled political refuge in its modern liberal meaning. It revealed the ways in which the Danish development schemes abroad intersect with biopolitical and carceral practices at home. This research further theorized migrants’ political subjectivities as well as the transnational dimensions of war and migration management. This research was funded by a combination of awards including a research grant from the Danish Institute in Damascus, a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement grant (BCS-1558400), and a Social Science Research Council Mellon International Dissertation Research Fellowship (2016).
