About



The Irish Network for Middle Eastern and North African Studies (INMENAS) was established in July 2020 by a group of scholars based in Ireland with a scientific interest in the study of the region.

We come from different disciplinary backgrounds (from literature and the arts, to political science, sociology and the law) and are at different stages of our careers, from PhD candidates to full professors. 

Our goal is to facilitate contacts and exchange between those interested in the study of the region as well as professionals who work in the region; to consolidate relations between individuals and institutions in the global North and South; to map who we are and what we do. We aim to enhance opportunities for informal and formal mentorship and support the work of early-career researchers through different actions and initiatives.

By Middle East and North Africa, we understand the lands, countries and peoples that include the Maghreb, the Sahel, the Mashreq; the Levant, the Near East and South-East Mediterranean; Iran, the Gulf and its multiple trade roads, reaching Central Asia and South-East Asia.  

We also want to open  and contribute to difficult discussions about the region. We acknowledge that out field of study (Middle East and North African Studies) and the geo-political definition of "the region" are structurally intimate with European colonialism, with implications that go beyond the geographical boundaries of what we call the MENA (Middle East and North Africa). We aim to unpack the different ways in which this legacy influences our work and scientific attitude towards the region. We believe that Ireland is particularly well-placed to lead a conversation on these topics.

We are open and inclusive of all who wish to contribute to discussions and analysis about the past, present and future of the region and Ireland, North and South. 

You can reach us at inmenasireland@gmail.com 

 

OUR STATEMENT

The Irish Network for Middle East and North African Studies (INMENAS) is a learned platform for the promotion of the study and understanding of the region in the island of Ireland. It builds on the growing network of Ireland-based scholars and practitioners with relevant expertise, and on Ireland’s outreach both towards the global North and the global South

Our aim is to promote MENA studies and knowledge in Ireland and scholarly exchange among researchers based on the island of Ireland both individually and through inter-institutional collaboration. Our activities include the organisation of events and initiatives to foster scholarly discussion, promote graduate studies in the field and engage in public discussions on the region.  

The Irish Network for MENA Studies embraces the principles of inclusivity, cooperation, innovation, multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, as well as the promotion of academic freedom. It aims to bring Ireland and the MENA region  in a closer partnership through the involvement of academic and non-academic practitioners. 

The network is open to scholars of any nationality in the Irish academic system (PhD, Post-Docs, full-time and part-time faculty, as well as independent, unaffiliated and emeritus scholars) and to students whose research and teaching addresses the countries in the region of North Africa, the Levant, the Gulf, Turkey, Iran, Central and South-East Asia. The network’s structure and activities are driven by its members, and it aims to attract new researchers in the Irish academic system.


WHO WE ARE


Amin Sharifi Isaloo has a PhD in Sociology and he is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology & Criminology at University College Cork, Ireland. He is the author of the book Power, Legitimacy and the Public Sphere: The Iranian Ta’ziyeh Theatre Ritual (2017). His fields of interest include politics, religion and culture, focusing on sociological and anthropological interpretations of symbols, images and ritual performances.

Chelsea Wilkinson is a PhD candidate in the Peace Studies program at Trinity College Dublin. Her academic background consists of religious studies, psychology, conflict transformation, and the expressive arts. Chelsea works closely with issues of nativism and the use of art as a tool for peacebuilding, protest, and propaganda. Ultimately, her research goals are to further bridge the practice of expressive arts with conflict studies theoretical frameworks to better understand community dynamics in times of social change with the hope to address systemic issues of racism, xenophobia, sectarianism, and extremism in societies around the world today. Her main areas of focus are the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the USA.

Claudia Saba has a PhD in Political Science from UCD and lectures in International Relations at the Blanquerna School of Communication and International Relations, Ramon Llull University, Barcelona. She has published a number of articles dealing with the Palestine question. Her work is praxis-centred and combines her activist work with scholarly research.

Conor McCarthy teaches English literature and intellectual history at Maynooth University. He is the author of The Cambridge Introduction to Edward Said (2010) and co-editor (with David Landy and Ronit Lentin) of Enforcing Silence: Academic Freedom, Palestine and the Criticism of Israel (2020).

Dónal Hassett is a Lecturer in French in University College Cork. His first monograph Mobilizing Memory: The Great War and the Language of Politics in Colonial Algeria, 1918-1939 (2019) examines the legacies of the Great War in colonial Algeria. He has lived, studied and worked in France, Spain, Italy, the UK and Ireland and has also carried out research in Morocco and Algeria.

Emmet Jackson is a PhD student at the University of Exeter. He studied Egyptology at the University of Manchester. His research interests include the History of Egyptology and the travels and associated antiquarian collection and artwork of Lady Harriet Kavanagh. He is a trustee for the Association of Studies for Travel in Egypt and the Near East (ASTENE). 

Erika Biagini is Assistant Professor in Security Studies in the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University. Her area of expertise lies at the intersection of Islamism, gender, and politics. In Egypt, she conducted research on the activism of the Muslim Sisterhood in the aftermath of the 2011 uprising. Her current work addresses subjectivity, identity and feminist politics among Islamist women activists, the gender politics and sexuality of Islamist movements, and the evolution of the Egyptian MB since the 2013 repression.

Fabrizio Cuccu is a PhD student in the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University. His doctoral research examines security and anti-radicalisation policies in post-revolutionary Tunisia. In 2020, he won the Space Week Photo Competition with his stunning ‘Milky Way over a cliff in Sardinia’.

Hoang Thi Kim Quy is a Master's student in the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University. She got an Irish Aid scholarship for the program at DCU in 2019. Her research interests include feminism and Kurdish guerrillas, and the emerging alliances in the Middle East. She also holds a Master's degree in Journalism (2016, from the Academy of Journalism and Communication of Vietnam) and BSc Journalism (2013, AJC in Vietnam). She also is a reporter in the field of international affairs for state-owned online newspapers in Vietnam.

Ibrahim Natil is a research fellow at the Institute of International Conflict Resolution & Reconstruction (IICRR), Dublin City University and teaches politics and business at CTYI at DCU. He is the co-covenor of the NGOs in Development Study Group, DSA-UK, and winner of Robert Chamber Best Overall Paper, selected by DSA Ireland (2017). He was invited as a guest and visiting lecturer and an external examiner to a number of universities, such as Durham University and Bradford University. He is author of Conflict, Civil Society, and Women’s Empowerment (2021) and Hamas: Transformation Opportunities and Challenges (2015). He is editor and co-editor of Youth Civic Engagement and Local Peacebuilding in the Middle East and North Africa: Prospects and Challenges for Community Development (2021), Barriers to effective Civil Society Organisations: Political, Social and Funding Shifts (2020) and The Power of Civil Society in the Middle East and North Africa: Peacebuilding, Change and Development (2019). He also contributed to the Independent Australia. He authored and published several articles and book chapters on a wide range of conflict resolution, peace-building, human security, NGOs, revolutionary movements and political violence.

Idriss Jebari is Al Maktoum Assistant Professor in Middle East Studies in Trinity College Dublin. His research focuses on North African cultural history and Arab thought. He has a doctorate on the history of the production of critical thought in Morocco and Tunisia from University of Oxford, and hold postdoctoral positions at the American University of Beirut and Bowdoin College (Maine, USA). He has published on North African intellectuals, and on collective memory in the Arab world. He is currently preparing his first monograph on the Maghrib, Arab Thought and Cultural Modernity.

John Reynolds is Associate Professor of Law at Maynooth University, National University of Ireland. He teaches international law, and his research focuses on questions of international law in relation to colonialism, emergency, race and political economy, including in Palestine. John's book on Empire, Emergency and International Law (2017) was awarded the Kevin Boyle Book Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship. He is a founding editor of the Third World Approaches to International Law Review journal and website.

Natasha Remoundou is an Irish Research Council Laureate Fellow at the National University of Ireland, Galway working on human rights and modern Irish poetry with the ‘Republic of Conscience’ Research Project. She is a visiting lecturer in English Literature and Critical Theory at Deree, The American College of Greece in Athens where she teaches the International Honours’ seminar “Antigone’s Dilemma: Citizenship and Resistance in the Contemporary World.” Previously, she held the post of Visiting Research Fellow at the Moore Institute, NUIG Ireland, where she worked on archival research exploring contemporary Irish theatre and human rights violations. She taught English literature and Critical theory as an Assistant Professor of English at Qatar University and Literature and Philosophy at NUI Galway. She has published widely on Irish studies, interculturalism, memory, asylum narratives, women’s writing, and violence in drama and poetry at the intersection with gender, class, and race in 20th& 21stc. literature.

Niloufar Omidi holds a PhD in International Human Rights Law from the Irish Centre for Human Rights, NUI Galway. She is currently a Researcher in Policy & Human Rights at Lucy Michael Research Training and Consultancy, working on a wide range of equality and human rights projects. She has been teaching Human Rights Law for Advocates at the Huston School of Film & Digital Media, NUI Galway. She is author of the Galway Traveller Movement (GTM) policy position papers on the rights of Irish Travellers, in the areas of education, healthcare, and mental health. She was the Regional Coordinator for the Middle East & North Africa at the Journal on the Use of Force and International Law (JUFIL), Digest of State Practice. She is also a Peace Ambassador with the Institute for Economics and Peace, promoting innovative approaches to peace research as part of an international network of leaders.

Nisan Alıcı is a PhD researcher at Transitional Justice Institute, Ulster University. Her project is 'Transitional Justice in an Ongoing Conflict: A victim-centred analysis of Transitional Justice mechanisms in the context of the Kurdish Conflict'. She holds a Master’s degree in International Conflict and Security from the University of Kent, UK and a BA in Political Science and International Relations from Boğaziçi University, Istanbul. Nisan is the co-founder of the Demos Research Association for Peace, Democracy and Alternative Politics and has been working at Demos as a researcher since 2015. Previously, she worked as an advisor in the Turkish Parliament. Her research interests include critical peace, gender, victimhood, and transitional justice. She is also an Associate Fellow of Higher Education Academy UK.

Paola Rivetti is Associate Professor in the School of Law and Government, Dublin City University. She is author of Political Participation in Iran from Khatami to the Green Movement (2020) and co-editor of Islamists and the Politics of the Arab Uprisings: Governance, Pluralisation and Contention (2018) and Continuity and change before and after the Arab uprisings: Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt (2015). She is Associate Editor for the journals Iranian Studies and Partecipazione e conflitto. She serves as a member of the council of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (Brismes) and the chairperson of the Irish Network for Middle East and North African Studies (Inmenas).

Reema Hassan is a PhD candidate in the Department of English at Maynooth University. She has a BA in Sociology and English and an MA in English (Literatures of Engagement), both of which were undertaken in Maynooth University. Her doctoral research is on contemporary Iraqi literature, with a specific focus on representations of the body, the environment and violence in post-2003 Iraqi prose fiction.

Rita Sakr is Lecturer in Postcolonial and Global Literatures at Maynooth University, Ireland. She is the author of Monumental Space in the Post-Imperial Novel: An Interdisciplinary Study (2012) and ‘Anticipating’ the 2011 Arab Uprisings: Revolutionary Literatures and Political Geographies (2013), co-editor of The Ethics of Representation in Literature, Art and Journalism: Transnational Responses to the Siege of Beirut (2013), and co-director and co-producer of the RCUK-funded documentary on Beirut, White Flags. Recent articles include “The More-than-human Refugee Journey: Hassan Blasim’s Short Stories” in Journal of Postcolonial Writing and “Decolonial Imaginaries of Sanctuary in Behrouz Boochani's Work” in Crossings: Journal of Migration & Culture. Rita is a commissioning editor for the Arab Literature and Culture volumes of the Literary Encyclopedia and is senior co-investigator on the mixed-methods study SALaM-Ireland that investigates the mental health and wellbeing of young Arabic-speaking migrants/refugees in Ireland.

Roberto Mazza earned his PhD from SOAS University of London in 2007. He is currently Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Limerick. He published two books, in 2009 Jerusalem from the Ottomans to the British and in 2011 Jerusalem in World War I: the Palestine Diary of a European Consul. Dr Mazza is also the Executive Editor of the Jerusalem Quarterly. He directs Jerusalem Unplugged, a podcast series dedicated to Jerusalem, its history, and its people.

Ronit Lentin is a retired Associate Professor of sociology Trinity College Dublin where she founded and ran the MPhil in Race, Ethnicity, Conflict. She was chairperson of Academics for Palestine (2016-2019) and is a member of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign. She has published extensively on race and racism in Ireland, Israel and Palestine. Her books include: Racism and Anti-Racism in Ireland (co-edited 2021 [2002]), Traces of Racial Exception: Racializing Israeli Settler Colonialism (2018), Enforcing Silence: Academic Freedom, Palestine and The Criticism of Israel (co-edited 2020), and Disavowing Asylum: Documenting Ireland's Asylum Industrial Complex (2021).

Sahar Ahmed is a PhD candidate in Law at Trinity College Dublin, where she researches the right to freedom of religion within the international human rights legal system and Islamic jurisprudence. Sahar graduated from the University of London in 2010 with an LL.B (Hons) degree. She is a member of the Bar of England and Wales since 2011, and a barrister member of the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn. Sahar practiced as a commercial and corporate barrister in Lahore. She held a research position at Amnesty International London, working on human rights violations of religious minorities and the then recent lifting of moratorium on the death penalty in Pakistan, for the Pakistan-Afghanistan Team.

Sardar Aziz is a senior adviser to the Natural Resources Committee at the Kurdistan Parliament of Iraq. He obtained his BA and PhD at University College Cork. His doctorate study was on modernity and the state in the Middle East. He taught Middle Eastern politics, Kurdish politics and Orientalism at the Asian Studies and Government Department in Cork, and advised Irish MEPs in European Parliament. He has also worked for various think-tanks in Germany and Turkey, and published books, articles and editorials in local and international journals.

Seán Makcen is a 23 year old scholar currently based in Dublin studying the Master's in International Security and Conflict in Dublin City University. Seán previously graduated twice from Dublin City University. First in 2019 with a Bachelor's Degree in Irish and Geography where Seán specialised in spaces of memory and Middle Eastern politics. Seán recently graduated in 2020 from the Master's in International Relations and his thesis focused on European and U.S involvement/non involvement in the conflicts in Cyprus and Bosnia & Herzegovina titled, 'Saviour or Self Interest? An analysis of the role played by the European Union in the conflicts of Cyprus and Bosnia and Herzegovina'. This year he is focusing his thesis on an analysis of the transforming narratives surrounding the 'Arab Spring' to include such factors like spaces of memory to better understand the uprisings as a continual event, supervised by Dr. Paola Rivetti. Seán has aspirations of working as both an academic by obtaining a PhD and in the national and multinational spheres in organisations such as the European Union and United Nations.

Sean McCafferty is a Master's student studying Security, Intelligence, and Strategic Studies at the University of Glasgow, Dublin City University, and Charles University. Sean holds an undergraduate degree in history and politics from the University of Glasgow. His research interests cover a broad range of topics on security and the MENA region. He is currently focusing on political violence and emerging technologies with a specific interest in how methods of violence evolve in the context of asymmetric conflicts.

Silvia Gagliardi holds a PhD in Human Rights (2018) from the Irish Centre for Human Rights, School of Law, National University of Ireland, Galway. Between 2014 and 2018, she was a recipient of the Irish Research Council (IRC) Postgraduate Scholarship. Her doctoral thesis analysed the relationship between the rights of indigenous peoples and minority groups and women’s rights, using post-2011 Morocco as a case study. She is author of Minority Rights, Feminism and International Law: Voices of Amazigh Women in Morocco (2020).

Stephanie Dornschneider is Assistant Professor in the School of Politics and International Relations at University College Dublin. Her research examines political dissidents who engage in violent and nonviolent resistance targeting autocratic rulers, particularly in the Middle East. These dissidents are typically overlooked by Western policymakers, and violently repressed by their domestic rulers. Her work sheds light on this behaviour by tracing the cognitive processes underlying their political choices, identified from ethnographic interviews and computational methods.

Swara Shariff Karim is a PhD student in Sociology at University College Cork. His doctoral research is titled 'Disenfranchised grief and complex loss: The Lived Experiences of Kurds in Ireland post-naturalization, case study'. He holds two BAs, one from the University of Mosul, Iraq, earned in 1991, and one from University College Cork earned in 2018. He earned a Master's degree in Sociology, Sustainable Development and Globalization from University College Cork in 2019. He also holds a Diploma in Sports Injury therapy (CSN 2012).

Trent Tetterton is an Erasmus Mundus scholar currently completing the International Master in Security, Intelligence, and Strategic Studies offered jointly by the University of Glasgow, Dublin City University, and Charles University. In May 2020, he graduated with distinction from the United States Naval Academy with a BSc in Aerospace (Astronautical) Engineering and was commissioned as a nuclear submarine officer in the United States Navy. He is the Senior Editor for the University of Glasgow based think tank The Security Distillery, and his current research interests include the intersection between identity politics and regional security.


Vincent Durac is Associate Professor in Middle East Politics at University College Dublin, Ireland and is a visiting professor at Bethlehem University. His research is focused on a number of aspects of contemporary Middle East Politics, including political reform, the role of civil society the impact of external actors in the region, and Yemeni political dynamics. He is co-author of Politics and Governance in the Middle East (2015) and of Civil Society and Democratization in the Arab World: The Dynamics of Activism (2011).

Waleed Serhan is an Assistant Professor at the University of Social Sciences, Warsaw. He received a PhD in sociology from Trinity College Dublin and MSc in global movements, social justice and sustainability from the University of Glasgow. He has researched and published on refugees, ethnic conflict, and nation building in the Arab Mashreq (Levant) and the Arab Gulf. Waleed is currently researching migration and museums in Dublin and Warsaw.

Yaser Alashqar is adjunct Assistant Professor in the International Peace Studies MPhil programme at Trinity College in Ireland. He completed his PhD in civil society and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at Trinity College. Born in Gaza, he holds a Master’s Degree in Conflict and Peace Studies from the University of Coventry and a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from Palestine. His research and teaching areas include: Middle Eastern politics, Israeli-Palestinian issues, comparative peace processes, conflict analysis, and mediation in theory and practice. He is also an Academic Member of the Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of London. He has published many articles and papers on a range of key issues such as Palestinian politics and civil society, Gaza, the UN and Palestinian statehood, and US policy. 


You can reach us at inmenasireland@gmail.com

Chairperson contact: paola.rivetti@dcu.ie

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