Biography

 I completed an MA in Arabic studies at the University of Geneva, with a specialization in the history of the Middle East. Previously, I studied Arabic, Middle Eastern studies, and Comparative Literature at Geneva and Beirut. In 2015-2016, I participated in an academic exchange program at Saint Joseph University, Beirut. After completing studies, I took part in several archiving and research projects. In 2017, I was an intern in the Audiovisual Archives Department of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). In 2018, I worked with Umam Documentation & Research in Beirut.

Research

Since September 2018, I am a PhD student at the Institute of History, under the supervision of Prof. Jordi Tejel. I am part of the ERC project titled “Towards a Decentred History of the Middle East: Transborder Spaces, Circulations, Frontier Effects and State Formation, 1920-1946.”

My PhD project examines how motorized transport emerged in the interwar Middle East by making a social, economic, and political history of the so-called ‘trans-desert routes’ that opened up between Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq in the 1920s. As a matter of fact, the development of motorized transport in the region was concurrent with the emergence of new states under French and British mandates. In this context, I am examining how the increasing movement of people and goods influenced or challenged the process of state formation; conversely, how the introduction of new borders affected mobility on the trans-desert routes. In addition, this project seeks to show what travel practices, forms of economic enterprise, and regional interactions emerged with motorized transport. By focusing on these trans-desert routes and the different experiences of automobility that straddled across the borders, the project moves away from the methodological nationalism that has long characterized the historiography of Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq.

Publications

Profil LIBRA

Motor Transport and Mobilities across Iraq and Syria: Transdesert Passengers, Imperial Interests and the Business of Travel, 1923-1945 (titre provisoire)