About
My name is Ali Hamdan, and I am a specialist in political geography with a regional focus on the Middle East and North Africa. I have extensive field experience working and studying in the region, particularly in Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and Turkey, and am passionate about using qualitative methods to contribute to interdisciplinary discussions about the changing nature of political violence, forced migration, and world politics in the 21st century.
I am currently a Post-Doctoral Scholar and Visiting Assistant Professor of Geography. I am an inaugural member of the Mount Vernon Society of Fellows and visiting scholar with the Institute for Middle East Studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs.
My research centers on the geographical processes of civil wars, focusing on actors who connect places at war to places “at peace".” In my dissertation research, I explored the exile geopolitics of refugees from Syria’s war, and am beginning work on a project investigating the role of international development contractors (IDCs) in shaping US foreign policy abroad. As such, my scholarly and pedagogical interests include the study of borders and migration, the role of non-state actors in world politics, and representations of conflict zones in geopolitical discourse, in particular in the Middle East.
PhD (Geography), University of California - Los Angeles, 2019
MA (Geography), University of California - Los Angeles, 2013
BA (Geography), Middlebury College, 2010
Contact
ahamdan [at] gwu [dot] edu
The George Washington University
3100 Foxhall Road
Academic Building 223-A
Washington, DC 20007