I am a lecturer and a PhD candidate in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Cologne. I completed the interdisciplinary master's degree "Culture and Environment in Africa" in 2016 at the University of Cologne. I wrote my master thesis on "Perceptions of Sexual Harassment and the Islamic religious discourses in Cairo". My current PhD research project focuses on Arab unaccompanied minor and youth refugees in Germany and their Family and Future Making processes. Since December 2020, I have started also working in the Capacity Building Team of the Global Responsibility Unit at International Office of the University of Cologne. My role is to support scientific collaboration projects between the University of Cologne and our partners especially in the MENA-Region.

The GSSC is a great platform for building one’s academic network. Through the many conferences and workshops organized by the GSSC, one could meet and exchange with national and international scholars from the same field and from other disciplines. The GSSC has also provided me with funds to participate in conferences and workshops, as well as scientific trips to search for scientific collaborations from the Global South.

My research project deals with Arab unaccompanied minor and youth refugees living in Germany. The project aims to explore the experiences and perceptions of the minor and youth refugees of their changing family structures and gender relations caused by their migration process and their new life in Germany. Additionally, this research examines how unaccompanied minor and youth refugees’ make an ‘alternative’ family in the absence of their ‘natal family’. I am exploring to what extent these relationships help unaccompanied minor and youth refugees to overcome the absence of their ‘natal family’ and to what extent these relationships last in the future. Furthermore, the project explores the expectations and imaginations of minor and youth refugees for their future and for their future family in particular.