These are the papers I have presented at various international academic conferences.

 

You can request them via contact@norastel.com.

 

 

 

 

CONFERENCE PAPERS

 


2024  |      Security Flows conference

Present paper 'The Agnopolitics of Refoulement: Migration Diplomacy and the Un/Knowing of Refugee Deportations from Lebanon to Syria' at the 'How to (Un)Do Borders With Data' (London, 19-20 September)


2024   |     IMISCOE annual conference

Co-convene and chair panel on 'South-to-South Return Migratio int he EU's Neighborhood' and present paper ';Refugee Return from Lebanon to Syria and the Paradoxes of Ir/regularization and l/legebility' (with Maissam Nimer)


2024   |     SWISS INTERNATIONAL STUDIES ASSOCIATION

'EU geopolitics and diplomacy in the face of refugee returns from Lebanon to Syria' (at the 'Interregional dynamics of Syrian refugee return')


2022    |     EUROPEAN INTERNATIONAL STUDIES ASSOCIATION 

'Strategic ignorance and the legitimation of remote warfare: the Hawija bombardments' (at the 'Interventions and ignorance: the production and circulation of non-knowledge in and through external intervention' panel I co-hosted)


2022     |     KING'S COLLEGE LONDON (ONLINE)

'The Convenience of Contigency and the Intractability of Intent - Reflections on Lebanese Refugee Governance and the Agency of Non-Knowledge' (at the workshop 'Global Politics of Non-Knowledge: Borders, Power, Technology')


2022     |     INTERNATIONAL STUDIES ASSOCIATION (ONLINE)

'Unpacking Lebanon's Hybrid Migration State: Institutional Ambiguity beyond Failure and Fragility' (in the panel 'Widening Research on Migration States: New Insights from the Global South')


2021     |     GOVERNANCE AND LOCAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM (ONLINE)

'Hybrid Political Order and the Politics of Uncertainty - Refugee Governance in Lebanon' (at the 'Bureaucratic Performance and Informal Spaces' workshop in the 'Governance, People, and Space' series)


2021     |     EUROPEAN INTERNATIONAL STUDIES ASSOCIATION (ONLINE)

'The Agnopolitics of Refoulement: European Externalization and Syrian Refugee Return' (at the 'Regimes of power/(non)knowledge in governing borders and mobility' panel)


2021     |     EUROPEAN CONSORTIUM FOR POLITICAL RESEARCH (ONLINE)

'Uncertainty, Exhaustion, Abandonment - Leveraging the Idea of Strategic Institutional Ambiguity to Interrogate South/North Distinctions in Forced Migration Studies' (at the 'Theorizing Immigration Politics: Insights from the Global South' panel)


2021     |     ROYAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY (ONLINE)

'Affective Economies and Epistemic Politics in Migration Research' (with Leonie Ansems de Vries and Nadine Voelkner at the 'Bordering through Affect and Epistemics' panel we convened)


2021     |     UNIVERSITE DU LUXEMBOURG (ONLINE)

'Local authority in informal Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon: divide-and-rule under a regime of institutional ambiguity' (at the REFUGOV 'Camps Across the World' conference)


2020     |     CENTRE FOR GLOBAL COOPERATION RESEARCH - UNIVERSITY OF DUISBURG-ESSEN (ONLINE)

'EU policy engagement with contested refugee returns in regional host states' (with Tamirace Fakhoury, at the author's workshop 'Governing Refugee Returns in the International System')


2020     |     KING'S COLLEGE LONDON, RADBOUD UNIVERSITY NIJMEGEN AND UNIVERSITY OF GRONINGEN (ONLINE)

'Affective Relationalities and Epostemic Politics in Migration Research' (at the seminar 'Bordering through affect and epistemics - emerging notions in migration research' that I co-convened)


2020     |     KING'S COLLEGE LONDON (ONLINE)

'The Agnopolitics of Refoulement. EUrope's Strategic Ignorance and Productive Ambiguity and Syrian Refugee Returns' (at the seminar 'Regimes of power/(non-)knowledge in governing borders and mobility')


2020     |     UNIVERSITY OF WARSAW (ONLINE)

'Hybrid Political Order and the Politics of Uncertainty. Refugee Governance in Lebanon' (Expected Inequalities and Unexpected Symmetries conference, Refugee Crises panel)


2020     |     UNIVERSITE DE NEUCHATEL

'Uncertainty, Abandonment, Exhaustion - Leveraging the notion of strategic institutional ambiguity to interrogate South/North distinctions in forced migration studies' (at the workshop Social Marginality and Banishment)


2019     |     UNIVERSITY OF LUXEMBOURG

'Uncertainty, Abandonment, Exhaustion - Leveraging the notion of strategic institutional ambiguity to interrogate South/North distinctions in forced migration studies' (at the workshop Emerging Notions in Geographical Research on Forced Migration and Borders)


2019     |     ROYAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY LONDON

'If you're confused, don't worry, everybody is confused here:' Refugee governance and the politics of uncertainty in Lebanon


2019     |     IMISCOE

Institutional Ambiguity and the Politics of Uncertainty: Introducing a New Perspective on Refugee Governance (at the workshop Illegibility in Migration Regimes)


2019     |     UTRECHT UNIVERSITY

The PLO's trajectory from de facto sovereingty to marginalized mimicry in Lebanon: legal identity and the politics of administration (at the workshop Legal Identity Under Rebel Governance)


2019     |     THE GRADUATE INSTITUTE GENEVA

Strategic Institutional Ambiguity in Lebanon: What the Governance of Refugees Can Tell Us about the Functionality of Disorder (at the workshop Democracy and Disorder - Political Unpredictability, Illiberal Governance and Prospects for Democratic Voice)


2018     |     EUROPEAN INTERNATIONAL STUDIES ASSOCIATION

Exporting Institutional Ambiguity in Refugee Governance? How Lebanon's Politics of Uncertainty Mirrors Europe's Politics of Abandonment and Exhaustion

Part of a panel I convened titled 'Refugee Governance in Europe and 'the Region:' Making Sense of 'No-Policy-Policies and Violent Inaction'

 

2018     |     DEVELOPMENT STUDIES ASSOCIATION

‘We’re not supposed to understand!' Refugee Governance and the Politics of Uncertainty in Lebanon

 

2017    |     EUROPEAN INTERNATIONAL STUDIES ASSOCIATION

The Causes, Characteristic and Consequences of Informality in Lebanon’s Response to the Syrian Refugee Crisis – An Agnotological Reading of Institutional Ambiguity (with Jessy Nassar)

Part of a panel I convened titled 'The Politics of Ignorance, Ambiguity and Uncertainty: Furthering an Inter-Disciplinary Development of Agnotology'

 

2017     |     GOVERNANCE AND LOCAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

Studying the Informality of Syrian Refugees in Lebanon: Hybrid Political Order and the Politics of Uncertainty

 

2017     |     CULTURES, CITIZENSHIP, AND HUMAN RIGHTS

I was co-organizer of the seminar 'Migrant Ethnographies: Academic and Activist Methods, Challenges and Perspectives.'

 

2017     |     CENTRE FOR INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT ANALYSIS AND MANAGEMENT

How to Make Sense of Respondents’ Non-Responses. Agnotology and the Study of Silence and Ambiguity in Conflict-Affected Settings

 

2016     |     CENTRE FOR CONFLICT STUDIES

From State-Within-the-State to Mediated Stateness: PLO Governance in Lebanon

 

2016     |     RESISTANCE(S): BETWEEN THEORIES AND THE FIELD

Ignorance as Resistance? How Palestinian Refugees in South Lebanon Cope with Intentional Institutional Ambiguity

 

2015     |     SERVICE PROVISION IN A CHANGING ARAB WORLD

Facilitating Facts on the Ground. The ‘politics of uncertainty’ and the Governance of Housing, Land, and Tenure in the Palestinian Gathering of Qasmiye, South Lebanon

 

2014     |     MIDDLE EAST STUDIES ASSOCIATION

'The Children of the State?’ How Palestinians from the Seven Villages Negotiate Sect, Party and State in Lebanon

 

2014     |     GLOBAL BUSINESS, EMERGING MARKETS AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Business in Genocide – Understanding the How and Why of Corporate Complicity in Genocides

 

2013     |     G20 YOUTH FORUM

Governance and Government in the Arab Spring Hybridity: Reflections from Lebanon

 

2012     |     DEVELOPMENT DIALOGUE

The Eye of the Beholder: Service Provision and State Legitimacy in Burundi

 

2012     |     VIOLENT CONFLICT AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Entrepreneurs in the Dark: The Impact of Fragile and Hybrid Governance on Lebanese Entrepreneurship - A Case Study of the Electricity Sector