Anaheed Al-Hardan

Anaheed Al-Hardan is an assistant professor of sociology in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Media Studies at the American University of Beirut. Her research is concerned with coloniality and resistance in relation to counter-memory, decolonial knowledges and south-south thought in the Arab World, and has appeared in Journal of Palestine Studies, Qualitative Inquiry, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies and International Sociology. She is the author of the award-winning Palestinians in Syria: Nakba Memories of Shattered Communities (Columbia University Press, 2016), joint winner of the 2016 Academic Book Award at the London Palestine Book Awards. Her current book project examines Arab decolonial theory within the context of south-south philosophies of liberation and decolonization. She is a Principal Investigator on the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-funded research program Afro-Asian Futures Past.

Previously, Anaheed Al-Hardan was the Arcapita Visiting Professor of Arab Studies at the Middle Institute at Columbia University (2018), Visiting Scholar at the Bandung Humanism Initiative at the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society at Columbia University (2018), Visiting Fellow at the Berlin Graduate School for the Study of Muslim Cultures and Society at the Free University of Berlin (2017), Research Fellow at the ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry (2011-14) and a Doctoral Fellow of the Palestinian American Research Center (2008).

Selected Publications

Books

Palestinians in Syria: Nakba Memories of Shattered Communities (Columbia University Press, 2016).

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

“The Sociological Canon Reconfigured: Empire, Colonial Critique and Contemporary Sociology,” in International Sociology 33 (5): 545-557 (2018 ).

"Memories For The Return? Remembering The Nakba By The First Generation Of Palestinian Refugees In Syria," Journal Of Holy Land And Palestine Studies 16 (2): 177-192 (2017).

"Al-Nakbah in Arab Thought: The Transformation of a Concept," Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 35(3): 622-638 (2015).

"Decolonizing Research on Palestinians: Towards Critical Epistemologies and Research Practices," Qualitative Inquiry 20 (1): 61-71 (2014).

"A Year On: The Palestinians in Syria," Syrian Studies Association Bulletin 17 (1) (2012).

"The Right of Return Movement in Syria: Building a Culture of Return, Mobilizing Memory for the Return," Journal of Palestine Studies 41(2): (2012).

"Remembering the Catastrophe: Uprooted Histories and the Grandchildren of the Nakba," in A. Sparkes (ed) Auto/Biography Year Book 2007 (Clio Publishing: Southampton, 2008).

"Understanding the Present Through the Past: Between British and Israeli Discourses on Palestine," in R. Lentin (ed), Thinking Palestine, (Zed Books: London, 2008).

Research interests:

Post- and decolonial sociology; historical sociology; global and transnational sociology; sociology of memory