Ameena Mishael

Academic Mentor: Lila Abu-Lughod, Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professor of Social Science, Department of Anthropology

Research Topic: Oral Narratives of Displacement Among Palestinian Bedouin Women Refugees from Beersheba in Jordan

Country: Palestine

Columbia Global Center: Amman

Ameena Mishael is a displaced Palestinian researcher originally from Beersheba. She holds a master’s degree in English literature and a bachelor’s degree in literature and cultural studies in English language from the Hashemite University in Jordan. In addition to teaching English, she has worked with British photographer, Professor Tom Hunter (Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, UK), on a project about the influence of the cultural legacy of Lawrence of Arabia on emerging identities in the Arab world.

In her master’s thesis, Ameena took inspiration from one of the most influential postcolonial scholars, Gayatri Spivak, who wrote the essay, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Using the notion of the subaltern, Ameena examined the representation of Bedouins as a subaltern group in twentieth century desert romance novels, such as The Sheik by Edith Maude Hull (1919); Blue Jasmine by Violet Winspear (1969); and Breaking the Sheikh's Rules by Abby Green (2010). In addition, her study provided a psychological analysis of the character of the “Sheikh” using the concept of projection developed by Freud and Fenichel. She also explored Gramsci’s notion of cultural hegemony and the works of Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault, and Lyotard to shed light on the intertwined relationship between power structures and knowledge production.

Ameena’s research at the Columbia Global Center in Amman will focus on the cultural and social evolution of the overlooked community of Palestinian Bedouin refugees in Jordan, who primarily consist of an indigenous, tribal population forcibly displaced from Beersheba to Jordan in the wake of the Nakba war of 1948. She aims to decipher patterns of mobility and evolving dynamics through which Bedouin identity manifests and reconfigures itself under the impact of displacement.  

Ameena’s study will adopt an interdisciplinary approach, drawing particularly from subaltern studies and feminist anthropology. Her main academic interests are in the areas of Bedouin communities, the Palestinian diaspora, indigenous studies, subaltern studies, race studies, and women’s studies.

PUBLICATIONS

“Young Writers Between the Digital Space and Cultural Institutions”, Sawt Algeel, Issue no. 10, 2023, Published by the Ministry of Culture of Jordan, 2023.

“Can the Bedouins Speak? The Representation of Bedouins in Desert Romance Novels,” MA Dissertation, Hashemite University, 2020.