Dr. Fouad Gehad Marei
Dr. Fouad Gehad Marei joined the Centre for Middle Eastern and North African Politics in 2013 as a Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer. He was awarded a PhD in International Relations from Durham University, UK in 2012. Fouad is also the recipient of the 2015/2016 Research Grant Award of the Arab Council for the Social Sciences under the theme of “Inequality, Mobility and Development” for his research project "Resistance, Piety, and Development: Hezbollah’s Capital of Resistance as Global City".
Based on extensive fieldwork in Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere, his research focuses on state-society relations and political economy of development with a particular interest in deeply divided and post-conflict societies. Fouad’s research involves actor-focused critical anthropologies of authority, the state and emerging spaces and practices of governance as well as the role of Islamist actors in local politics. In 2012-2013, he undertook fieldwork in conflict-stricken Syria and authored a number of policy papers examining in-country civilian opposition and local administration structures as well as the emerging justice and security sectors in rebel-held areas. Capitalising on more recent fieldwork in Lebanon, Turkey and Morocco, Fouad is developing a comparative research project examining and interrogating emerging and increasingly globalised spaces, reconfigurations and practices of governance.
In addition to his academic work, Fouad worked with several NGOs and civil society groups in Egypt and Lebanon since 2005.