The Southern Responses to Displacement project works closely with a team of bi-lingual and multi-lingual researchers based in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, including researchers who have themselves been affected by the Syrian conflict.
Amal Shaiah Istanbouli
Amal is a researcher on the Southern Responses to Displacement project based in Turkey, and a holder of MA degree from the Institute of Muslims Civilizations, AKU, London. In her MA thesis, she focused on the role of work and the conceptualisation of home in displacement based on her ethnographic field work in Antakya. Prior to joining the project Amal worked in many research projects such as the Mediterranean Missing migrant project, and other unpublished projects too. Amal is interested in displacement, forced migrations, the meaning of loss and identity crisis related to the Syrian context and refugees in general. She has been displaced from Syria since 2012, and she is currently based in Hatay, Turkey where she works as a consultant and an Arabic-English interpreter too. You can read Amal’s blog post ‘Research terminology from the ‘Global North’ to the ‘Global South’ -conceptualisations, interpretations and challenges from Hatay, Turkey’ here, and her co-authored post ‘Educating the Host’ here.
Sara Alhelali Saab
Sara is a researcher in the Southern Responses to Displacement project based in Gaziantep. She pursued a Master of Public Health at the French National School of Public Health EHESP where she developed an interest for doing qualitative research particularly on migration and displacement-related topics and specifically in the Syrian context, since has been displaced from Syria herself and has been working in the humanitarian field for the past nine years. You can read Sara’s blog, ‘The importance of place and language – Syrian, Turkish and Syrian-Turkish encounters in Gazientep’ here, and her co-authored post ‘Educating the Host’ here.
Former Team Members
Hazar Oklah was a Researcher on the Southern Responses to Displacement project between 2018 and 2021. Hazar is based in Jordan and her blog for Southern Responses to Displacement draws on her interviews with Syrian refugees, local residents and aid providers to describe the unequal impact of the Coronavirus lockdown on Syrian refugees living in Jordan. Her pieces are available in English and Arabic.
Click here to access in English.
Click here to access in Arabic.
Featured Photo: Everyday life in the alleyways of Baddawi Camp, N. Lebanon. (c) E. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh
Southern Responses to Displacement 