2010 Ph.D. Candidate, Socio-cultural Anthropology, Michigan State University

2005 M.A., Anthropology, Michigan State University

2000 B.A., Anthropology and Philosophy, University of Florida

1998 A.A., Anthropology, Miami-Dade College

Primary Areas of Research Specialization:  Nationalism and National Identity; Memory; Transnational Migration, Displacement, and Refugees; Diaspora; Muslim Politics; Human Rights

Dissertation Title: Remembering the Nation: Palestinians and the Production of National Identity in Jordan

Dissertation Abstract: My research interests focus on the intersections between transnational migration and displacement, history and memory, and the formation of national and religious identity in the Middle East.  These topical and theoretical concerns are grounded in two years of ethnographic fieldwork conducted amongst Palestinians in three United Nations refugee camps and various urban communities in Amman, Jordan.  Funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation and Fulbright IIE, my dissertation argues that the absence of a coherent national movement has facilitated new forms of identification that reflect competing visions of the Palestinian nation, homeland, and cause.  Critically analyzing discursive representations of identity and memory, I consider how the ongoing struggle between Fatah and Hamas over the meaning and direction of the national movement, the broader conflict with the Israeli state, and the global war on terror are brought into the local context to produce unique forms of Palestinian national discourse. My research suggests that the assumed dichotomy between secular nationalism and political Islam is insufficient for understanding how Palestinians in Jordan conceptualize their relationship to the nation and homeland.  Instead, I argue that Palestinians use a complex mixture of secular and religious idioms that combine to form an Islamic nationalism that draws on the postcolonial rhetoric of national self-determination and the right to a territorial state in terms of the eternal bonds between Muslims and Palestine.  In so doing, Palestinians construct a particular form of inclusionary politics that, while establishing links between new and old forms of national solidarity, also excludes significant visions of the nation and redefines the conflict with Israel in religious terms.  Moreover, my research indicates that, as citizens of Jordan faced with the ongoing challenge of Jordanian exclusivist politics, Palestinians construct ambiguous meanings of Arab and Muslim identity that both normalize and disrupt their relationship to Jordanians and the state.