Nadia El-Shaarawi

Nadia El-Shaarawi is an Assistant Professor of Global Studies at Colby College and currently a visiting scholar at the Global Mental Health Program in the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University. She is a cultural and medical anthropologist who specializes in transnational forced migration, humanitarian intervention, and mental health in the Middle East and North Africa. Her current book project, Collateral Damages, analyzes how, in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion and the sectarian violence that followed, Iraqi refugees in Cairo negotiated uncertain conditions of protracted urban exile and how interactions with global and international institutions and policies, especially refugee resettlement, had implications for mental health and well-being. In collaboration with Maple Razsa, Nadia is also working on Insurgent Mobilities, a collaborative ethnography of the Balkan Route that refugees travel to reach Europe. In contrast to narratives that present the Route as either a humanitarian or border “crisis,” Insurgent Mobilities explores what’s revealed by viewing the route from the point of view of refugees and solidarity activists as they struggle for freedom of movement. Prior to joining Colby, Nadia was the Global Migration Postdoctoral Fellow at the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University, where her work included research and teaching on the health and social effects of displacement and resettlement.

Bio Aug 2019