Professor Zahia Smail Salhi is Chair of Modern Arabic Studies at the University of Manchester since 2013 and Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Science at Sharjah University for the last three years. She specialises in Arabic literature, culture as well as women and gender in the Middle East and North Africa.

Her Keynote talk “Algeria and the Anxiety of Decolonisation: Case Studies in Language and Gender” takes us from the traumas of colonialism and the War of Independence to the challenges of decolonisation of both colonised and colonizer. She focuses in on questions of language and culture in newly independent Algeria, before moving on to her recent research into the role of women. Drawing on their historical legacy as resistance fighters, and Fanon’s work on the malleability of the veil, Zahia explores contemporary roles where women contest and affirm their place in the constantly shifting social environment of Algeria, via processes of ‘a quiet’ and ‘soft altering’ of social reality that subverts patriarchal power.

This plenary session, delivered as part of the 2026 Kurdish Studies Conference by Marlene Schäfers, University of Utrecht and Kurdish Studies Journal and Welat Zeydanlıoğlu, Kurdish Studies Network, was a conversation about the state of Kurdish Studies as a scholarly field. The session was moderated by Veli Yadirgi.

Marlene Schäfers is associate professor at the Department of Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Her research focuses on the impact of state violence on intimate and gendered lives, voice and memory, and the politics of death and the afterlife.

She specializes in the anthropology of the Kurdish regions and modern Turkey. Her first monograph, Voices that Matter: Kurdish Women at the Limits of Representation in Contemporary Turkey (University of Chicago Press, 2022), is based on long-term ethnographic research with Kurdish female singers and poets and sets out to theorise the voice as an object of aspiration, resistance, and cooptation. It was awarded the annual Book Prize of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association in 2024.

Welat Zeydanlıoğlu is the founder and coordinator of the Kurdish Studies Network(KSN), a global academic research network. He is also the founder of Kurdish Studies, an international, peer-reviewed academic journal. He was the managing editor of the journal between 2013-2022. He is known for his work in the field of Kurdish studies, particularly regarding the Kurdish question in Turkey.

For more information about the Kurdish Studies Conference, follow this link: https://www.lse.ac.uk/middleeastcentre/news/kurdish-studies-conference-2026

The LSE Middle East Centre hosted the launch of Richard Barltrop’s paper, 'Sudan’s Current War: A Longer View on Peacemaking and Prospects'.

This hybrid event launched a new paper examining the ongoing war in Sudan, which broke out in 2023. Drawing on lessons from the history of peacemaking in Sudan and comparative insights from other civil wars, the paper reflects on pathways toward ending the conflict, including the urgency of de-escalation, the need for sustained, long-term peacebuilding efforts, and the importance of Sudanese leadership and ownership in shaping a durable peace process. Richard will be joined by discussants Raga Makawi and Abdel Salam Sidahmad, and the event will be chaired by LSE's Laura Mann.

Meet our speakers

Richard Barltrop is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the LSE Middle East Centre researching contemporary approaches to peacemaking and peace processes. He has worked for the UN in the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa and is the author of Darfur and the International Community: The Challenges of Conflict Resolution in Sudan (IB Tauris, 2011).

Abdel Salam Sidahmed is Chairperson of the Sudanese HR Monitor (SHRM) and an academic and human rights specialist with a PhD in Political Science. He previously served as Senior Human Rights Advisor to the Sudanese Prime Minister and Minister of Justice during the transitional government (2020–2021). Dr. Sidahmed brings over two decades of international human rights experience, including nine years with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, where he served as Regional Representative for the Middle East (2013–2021). Prior to that, he spent ten years at Amnesty International (1995–2005) as a Researcher and later Program Director for the Middle East and North Africa. In academia, he served as Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada (2005–2011).

Raga Makawi is a Sudanese British researcher on Sudan's civic politics and social movements at the London School of Economics. She is the ex Editor at African Arguments curating topical themes on the Sudan's, the larger Horn and the general political and social affairs of the continent at large. She is co-author of the book Sudan's Unfinished Democracy: The Promise and Betrayal of a People's Revolution and is currently working on a number of publications in edited volumes including; the sudanese revolution and authoritarianism, the sudanese social movement contribution to security sector reform and new civic formations and the future of peace politics and political settlements in Sudan.

Meet our chair

Laura Mann is a sociologist whose research focuses on the political economy of development, knowledge and technology. Her regional focus is East Africa (Sudan, Kenya and Rwanda) but she has also worked on collaborative research on ICTs and BPO in Asia and has conducted fieldwork in North America as part of a project on digitisation within global agriculture.

This webinar examines perceptions of social protection and conflict prevention in Lebanon and Jordan among policymakers and household recipients of state-provided cash transfers.

Drawing on extensive qualitative fieldwork conducted between October 2022 and March 2024, Rana Jawad explores how global policy frameworks such as the Grand Bargain and the Humanitarian-Development-Peace (Triple Nexus) intersect with domestic social policy systems in conflict-affected low- and middle-income countries in the Middle East. The talk will highlight two key arguments: first, the narrowing of social policy towards targeted cash transfers and employment-based social insurance in contexts marked by high unemployment, informality, and reliance on foreign aid; and second, a mismatch between the preventive ambitions of the Triple Nexus framework and the actual scope of social policy in Lebanon and Jordan. The discussion will reflect on what meaningful ‘prevention’ might look like when social policy addresses the structural drivers of poverty, inequality, and limited employment opportunities.

Meet our speaker and chair

Rana Jawad is a Professor of Global Social Policy in the Department of Social Policy, Sociology and Criminology at the University of Birmingham. She specialises in the social policies and welfare systems of the Middle East and North Africa region, focusing on broad questions about institutional and political change, programme design and the impact of these on poverty and inequality. She is especially interested in the policy and political dynamics (including policy transfer issues) among international actors and the donor community, government officials and civil society organisations.

Reza Omidi is a Visting Fellow at the LSE Middle East Centre. His research focuses on social inequalities, welfare regime, political economy, and social policy developments. He is currently focused on the politics of social policy reforms, their institutional dynamics of advance and retrenchment, and their interrelationship with broader social and political transformations.

The LSE Middle East Centre hosted a Kuwait Programme workshop, presenting research on the influence of social media on food-consumption behaviours in Kuwait.

Kuwait is experiencing public health challenges driven by rising rates of non-communicable nutrition-related diseases such as diabetes and obesity. According to the World Bank, the prevalence of diabetes in Kuwait increased tenfold between 2000 and 2021, with approximately 25% of Kuwaiti adults now affected. Adding to this issue is the widespread social media culture in Kuwait surrounding food photography. There is a significant trend among individuals, as well as social media influencers, to share food-related content on platforms. The extensive use of digital platforms, combined with Kuwait's unique social media culture, offer new and unique avenues for studying how online content and interactions might shape food-consumption behaviours. This research addresses the influence of social media on food-consumption behaviours in Kuwait.

Meet our speakers

Fabrício M. Fialho is Assistant Professor of Sociology at HSE University and Research Fellow at the LSE International Inequalities Institute. His current work has focused on public opinion research and quantitative research methods.

Abrar Al Hasan is an Associate Professor of Information Systems and Operations Management at the College of Business Administration, Kuwait University. Her research interests include Social Media and Social Networks, Health IT, Online Markets, Digital Innovations, Crowdsourcing, and the Economics of Information Systems.

Meet our chair

Dr Aygen Kurt-Dickson is Senior Innovation Development Manager in the LSE Innovation & Impact team focuses on enhancing LSE’s I&I ecosystem through improved connections between LSE research and innovation and by building internal and external relationships to facilitate innovation.

In the final episode of this season, Ahmad Abu Hussien, an urban sociologist from Jordan, brings together academics and practitioners to explore theories of urban planning and design through case studies of Jordan and Dubai.

This episode explores the concept of infrastructural citizenship, a framework that helps us understand infrastructure not simply as roads, public spaces, water or sewage networks, but as a political and social system that shapes belonging in the city. In this way, Ahmad and his guests look at how certain communities are excluded from the city, and how theory can inform practice in building apps, policies and physical spaces for the better.

Ahmad Abu Hussien is an Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity and a sociologist specialising in urban inequalities. He is also the co-founder of AZHJ, a research consultancy focused on reducing disparities in cities and between cities, which works at the intersection of urban policy, governance, and research, with a focus on the Global South.

Deyala Tarawneh is Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Jordan, and Deputy Dean of Training and Alumni Affairs. She is deeply engaged in professional and institutional planning practice, including in roles with the Jordanian Engineering Institution, as well as supporting women in engineering and urban development.

Harun Jweinat is Co-Founder and Director of Design and Logistics at AZHJ. His work bridges art and spatial justice with a strong focus on translating complex urban ideas through practice and community facing work.

Huda Shaka is a chartered urban planner and a chartered environmentalist. Her work involves advising on city and regional plans, master plans and mega infrastructure projects as well as strategic policy frameworks for future-ready cities.

https://afsee.atlanticfellows.lse.ac.uk/en-gb/fellows/2023/ahmad-zeyad-abu-hussien

In this penultimate episode, Yara Shawky Shahin has a frank discussion with her colleague Yasmine D’Alessandro about how to create programmes of real economic empowerment for women in the Middle East and North Africa based on their decades long experience working with international and grassroots organisations in the region.

Yara Shawky Shahin is an Senior Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity and a researcher and civil society professional with more than 20 years of experience in the fields of development, human rights, policy analysis, and not-for-profit management. Yara has worked with different organisations including UNHCR, Save the Children, and UNDP in programs supporting youth participation, inclusion, and integration. With the Danish Egyptian Dialogue Institute, and recently Ford Foundation, her work focused on programs supporting media reform, freedom of expression, digital rights, and the impact of technology on society as well as advocating for inclusive social protections across countries of the MENA region.

Yasmine D’Alessandro is a senior development expert with over two decades of experience in the gender, economic empowerment, skills development and civil society fields. Yasmine has a solid grounding in program design, strategic planning, and program management across a wide spectrum of organisations, ranging from consultancy firms and international NGOs to independent grant-making institutions. Over the course of her career, she has successfully led initiatives that address complex social and economic challenges, in communities such as rural Upper Egypt, remote communities in Yemen, refugee camps in Jordan and pockets of poverty in urban centres in various countries, always with a focus on building sustainable and locally grounded impact. She has been consistently committed to bridging the gap between policy and practice, ensuring that programs are not only well-designed but also contextually relevant and responsive to community needs.

Find out more about Yara's work here: https://afsee.atlanticfellows.lse.ac.uk/en-gb/fellows/2023/yara-shawky-shahin

In this episode, Diana Magdy, a gender equality specialist, feminist researcher and oral historian has a conversation with Professor Hoda Elsadda unpacking the politics of archiving, revealing archives as spaces of power and resistance rather than neutral repositories.

Diana Magdy is an Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity and a feminist researcher and gender equality specialist from Cairo, Egypt. She has 12 years of experience in gender and development. As a feminist oral historian, she has worked on documenting the Egyptian feminist movement, producing feminist knowledge in Arabic, and archive building. In this area, she published a paper titled ‘Narrating Gender in Egypt's Public Sphere: The Archive of Women’s Oral History’.

Professor Hoda Elsadda is a feminist activist, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cairo University, and Co-founder of the Women and Memory Forum. She previously held a Chair in the Study of the Contemporary Arab World at Manchester University, and was Co-Director of the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World in the UK. Her research interests are in the areas of gender studies, comparative literature and oral history. She is author of Gender, Nation and the Arabic Novel: Egypt: 1892-2008 (Edinburgh UP and Syracuse UP, 2012); and co-editor of Oral History in Times of Change: Gender, Documentation and the Making of Archives (Cairo Papers, 35:1, 2018).

Find out more about Diana's work: https://afsee.atlanticfellows.lse.ac.uk/en-gb/fellows/2023/diana-magdy

Find out more about Hoda's work: https://wmf.org.eg/en/member/hoda-elsadda/

Return of Tyranny explains why counterrevolutions both emerge and succeed, marshalling original data on counterrevolutions worldwide since 1900. It also offers a fresh perspective and new evidence on the reversal of Egypt’s 2011 revolution, one of the most prominent recent episodes of counterrevolution. The book forwards a movement-centric argument that emphasizes the strategies revolutionary leaders embrace, both during their opposition campaigns and after they seize power. Movements that wage violent resistance and espouse radical ideologies establish regimes that are very difficult to overthrow. By contrast, democratic revolutions like Egypt’s are much more vulnerable – though the book also identifies a path by which they too can avoid counterrevolution. By preserving their elite coalitions and broad popular support, these movements can return to mass mobilization to thwart counterrevolutionary threats. In an era of resurgent authoritarianism worldwide, Return of Tyranny sheds light on one particularly violent form of reactionary politics.

Meet our speakers

Killian Clarke is an Assistant Professor in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, affiliated with the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. His research focuses on revolution, protest, democratization, and authoritarianism with a regional focus on the Middle East. He is the author of Return of Tyranny: Why Counterrevolutions Emerge and Succeed (Cambridge University Press, 2025), as well as peer-reviewed articles in the American Political Science Review, Annual Review of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, and World Politics.

Hazem Kandil is the Cambridge University Professor of Historical and Political Sociology, Fellow of St Catharine’s College and Head of Department. He studies power relations and social interactions, focusing on war, regime change, intellectuals and ideology in America, Europe, and the Middle East. He holds a PhD in Sociology from UCLA, and MA degrees in Political Theory and International Relations. His publications include Power Triangle: Military, Security, and Politics in Regime Change (Oxford University Press 2016), Inside the Brotherhood (Polity 2014), and Soldiers, Spies, and Statesmen (Verso 2012). Kandil received the Philip Leverhulme Prize (2014) and a ProFutura Scientia Fellowship (2016). After finishing a book project on US military campaigns from 1960 to the present, he started a new one on encounters with Critical Theory.

Meet our chair

Katerina Dalacoura is Associate Professor in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Director of the LSE Middle East Centre. She held a Major Research Fellowship by the Leverhulme Trust between 2021 and 2024. The project findings will shortly be published as a book monograph by Cambridge University Press, under the title Islamic International Thought in Turkey: History, Civilisation and Nation.

By bringing together academics and journalists that utilise gender and media studies, as well as history and international relations, this interdisciplinary panel will speak to the relationship between the family and nation-building, the role of media and advertising in representing the mother figure, and through real life stories explore how people in the Middle East and the diaspora have redefined what family looks like.

Meet our speakers

Dr Polly Withers is a feminist cultural studies researcher, currently leading the Leverhulme Early Career Project ‘Neoliberal Visions: Gendering Consumer Advertising and its Resistances in the Levant’, which considers how commercial advertising mediates shifts in gender and sexuality in post-Oslo Palestine and current-day Jordan. Prior to this, Polly’s work focused on the gender and sexuality politics of 'alternative' music and subcultural participation in contemporary Palestine and its diaspora. Her work has appeared in Feminist Media Studies, the British Journal of Middle East Studies, and related gender and cultural studies outlets. She is currently working on a single-author monograph based on her Leverhulme research.

Dr Andrew Delatolla is Associate Professor in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Leeds. His research interests centre on the intersections of race and sexuality in relation to statehood and state formation. He has recently concluded a funded project examining the politics of LGBTIQ+ rights in the Spanish overseas territories of Ceuta and Melilla and is currently part of an AHRC-DFG funded project examining transformations in gender and sexual governance in post-Soviet Muslim majority republics. His recent publications include a co-authored chapter, with Karim Chedid, in the anthology This Queer Arab Family edited by Elias Jahshan and a co-authored article with Hossein Cheaito in the European Journal of Politics and Gender on LGBTIQ+ activism in Lebanon.

Elias Jahshan (he/him) is a Lebanese-Palestinian journalist and writer, and the editor of groundbreaking anthologies THIS ARAB IS QUEER (2022) and THIS QUEER ARAB FAMILY (2025), both published by Saqi Books. This Arab Is Queer was a 2023 Lambda Literary Awards finalist in the USA and shortlisted for the 2023 Bread & Roses Award in the UK, and has been translated into Italian and soon in French. His short memoirs have been published in several anthologies, and he has written for The Guardian, The New Arab, Raseef22, My Kali, and more.

Meet our chair

Hakan Sandal-Wilson is Assistant Professor of Gender, Peace and Security at the Department of Gender Studies. He is a political sociologist whose teaching and research explore how gender and sexuality intersect with democracy, conflict, and ethnic and religious difference.