Banan Abdelrahman

Research Interests: Mobilities, Memory, Border Studies, Identity Formation, Critical Geographies, Diaspora, Imperialism, The Everyday, MENA 

About: 

My work centers on the layered impacts of migration and movements. I am interested in asking what is a "border" and how does the bordering process translate into negotiating one‏'s body within it. My questions aim to look at everyday interactions in legal border-making institutions as well as the flourishing industry that emerged around it (activist circles, smuggling businesses & humanitarian organizations). 

I hope to trace more fully the messiness of everyday life at the border/ during border-making, of what migration routes mean to those who travel on it and what decisions people make to survive.

I focus mainly on south to south migration routes in the SWANA region but also draw connections to global carceral patterns by linking similar securitization and detaining practices experienced by migrants in militarized borders.

Education:

American University in Cairo, M.A. in Migration and Refugee Studies, 2018 

American University in Cairo, M.A. in Women and Gender Studies, 2017 

Rutgers University, The State University of NJ- New Brunswick, B.A. in History, Political Science, and Middle Eastern Studies, 2013