Dr. Jennifer Mogannam
2021-2023
Contact Info
Email: jmogannam@ucdavis.edu
Website: www.jennifermogannam.com
Bio
Jennifer Mogannam is a UC President's Postdoctoral Fellow in the departments of Anthropology and Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies at UC Davis with ties to the program in Middle East/South Asian Studies. Jennifer is a critical, transdisciplinary scholar who received her Ph.D. from the Department of Ethnic Studies at UC San Diego and her MA in Middle Eastern Studies from the American University of Beirut (AUB). Her work examines 20th and 21st century Palestinian and Arab transnational movements and third world solidarities, with an eye for analyzing movement praxis for liberated futures. Her work intervenes in the critical study of refugees, borders, colonialisms, global scales of race and indigeneity, and resistance and is grounded in transnational, women of color, and indigenous feminist methods and lenses of liberation. As a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow, she is composing her book manuscript, Gendering Revolution: Palestinian-Lebanese Transnational Resistance and Decolonial Feminisms, which frames the stakes and limits of revolution for the stateless, the refugee, and the citizen as defined by active participant narrations of revolution in 1970s Lebanon. This work intervenes in the question of coalition building and power in movement praxis, gendered labor in anti-colonial struggle and redefining and resisting epistemic violence on the path of decolonization.
She is a Border Regimes and Resistance in Global Perspective Research Cluster Member at the Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz and was a founding participant in UC San Diego’s Critical Immigration and Refugee Studies research group, which received funding and recognition from the University of California Center for the Humanities. She has also been awarded for teaching excellence and social justice pedagogy at UC San Diego. She has publications in American Quarterly, Critical Ethnic Studies, and Social Identities and has forthcoming pieces including a forum on Palestinian refugees in Amerasia. She stays actively engaged and grounded in her local and transnational communities as an organizer of Palestinian and Arab American community spaces for over 15 years, most recently with the Palestinian Feminist Collective. Her work, while often historical, is also always forward looking, toward the possibilities of decolonization and building a new world.
She was also awarded the UC Davis Postdoctoral Excellence Award, in March 2023.
Refereed Journals
REPUBLISHED IN SAJJILU ARAB AMERICAN: A READER IN SWANA STUDIES
"Sajjilu Arab American: A Reader in SWANA Studies." Syracuse University Press (2022): 419-423
“Locating Palestinians at the Intersections: Indigeneity, Critical Refugee Studies, and Decolonization.” Amerasia 47, no. 2, (2021): 9-19.
BORDERS ARE OBSOLETE PART II: REFLECTIONS ON CENTRAL AMERICAN CARAVANS AND MEDITERRANEAN CROSSINGS
“Borders are Obsolete Part II: Reflections on Central American Caravans and Mediterranean Crossings.” Critical Ethnic Studies 6, no. 2 (2021).
SYRIA’S ANTI-IMPERIALIST MASK:
UNVEILING CONTRADICTIONS OF THE LEFT THROUGH ANTI-CAPITALIST THOUGHT
"Syria’s anti-imperialist mask: unveiling contradictions of the left through anti-capitalist thought." Social Identities 24, no. 2 (2018): 222-237.
BORDERS ARE OBSOLETE:
RELATIONS BEYOND THE “BORDERLANDS” OF PALESTINE AND US-MEXICO
"Borders Are Obsolete: Relations beyond the" Borderlands" of Palestine and US–Mexico." American Quarterly 67, no. 4 (2015): 1039-1046.
Dr. Mjriam Abu Samra
2023-2025
Contact Info
Email: mjriam.abusamra@gmail.com
Bio
Mjriam will be joining the department of Anthropology at UC Davis with ties to the program in Middle East/South Asian Studies as a Marie Sklodowska- Curie Postdoctoral Fellow through the cooperation with her hosting institution, the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy –Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage. Mjriam received her Ph.D. from the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford, UK and her MA in Middle East Politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), UK. Her research focuses on Palestinian transnational student and youth politics and Third World solidarities. Her work intervenes in the critical study of refugees, colonialisms, social movements and it is grounded on critical theories on subalternity and decolonization building on Gramsci and Fanon contribution to post-colonial studies. As a MSC Postdoctoral Fellow Mjriam will be exploring the political potential of contemporary Palestinian transnational youth activism in the United States and Europe through an historical comparative lens.
Currently Mjriam is a researcher at the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan in Amman where she has been based for the past 10 years. She acts as the gender expert for the quantitative component of “IMAGES-Jordan”, a UN-Women led research project, investigating masculinity and gender equality in Jordan and throughout the MENA region. For the past 7 years Mjriam has been teaching courses such as History of Colonialism in the Middle East and International Politics of the Middle East in undergraduate education abroad programs. She has also taught at the University of Jordan courses on refugee studies as well as theories of developments. Mjriam has publications in the Revue des Mondes Musulmans et de la Méditerranée and the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
Relevant Publications
Abu Samra Mjriam and Qutami Loubna “Transnational Politics in the post-Oslo Accords Era: The Case of the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM)”, Revue des Mondes Musulmans et de la Méditerranée, September 2020
Achilli Luigi and Abu Samra Mjriam “Beyond legality and illegality: Palestinian informal networks and the ethno-political facilitation of irregular migration from Syria”, Journal of Ethnic
and Migration Studies, September 2019
Abu Samra Mjriam “Political Agency in the Middle East” Virtual Roundtable Allegra 9 August 2016
Abu Samra Mjriam “Palestinian Youth Revolts: Any Role for Political Parties? Roundtable” Al-Shabaka 23 November 2015
Abu Samra Mjriam “The Road to Oslo and its reverse” Allegra Lab 29 October 2015
Abu Samra Mjriam “Italian-Palestinian relations: What went wrong?” Jadaliyya 30 August 2014