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Publications by Deena Dajani
Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2020
This paper draws on two current UK refugee resettlement schemes, the Vulnerable Persons Resettlem... more This paper draws on two current UK refugee resettlement schemes, the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme (VPRS) and Community Sponsorship, to consider the ways in which they borrow technologies from austerity and innovate ‘border-work’. On the global level, the paper considers how VPRS outsources the UK’s border management to UNHCR. On the national level, the paper considers how Community Sponsorship shifts the responsibility for the support of refugees from the state to local communities. Finally, on the local level, the paper discusses how the borrowed technologies between austerity and migration control (outsourcing, categorising, and individualizing responsibility) shape the experiences of social workers and migrants in a northern London borough. The paper contributes to understanding how the governmentalities of austerity and migration engage in shaping and re-shaping public space through the differential regulation of subjects who come to experience shared space in fundamentally different ways.
Media, War & Conflict
This article focusses on the social media content of RT Arabic – formerly Russia Today – the Russ... more This article focusses on the social media content of RT Arabic – formerly Russia Today – the Russian state-funded international news media organisation. It presents results of a qualitative analysis of social media posts in order to assess whether and how RT Arabic constructs a strategic narrative of its involvement in the war in Syria. It also contributes to conceptualisations of how state-sponsored strategic narratives operate in practice and can be mobilised as a soft power resource. Our key finding is that while Russia’s military presence is rendered almost invisible on RT Arabic, its role as a political and diplomatic actor is highly visible. Although Syrian civilians feature as the most prominent actors, they do so mostly as helpless victims and passive witnesses. Syria is represented as a non-sovereign, dysfunctional state, vulnerable to incursion by foreign forces who are vying for power and control in the region. In RT’s representation of the conflict Russia is portrayed as coming to the aid of Syrians and Syria, as a benign presence promoting the establishment of good governance, and skilfully managing the complex diplomatic relations surrounding the conflict. Rather than using straightforward propagandistic or hard-line ideological narratives, RT Arabic creates its own style of persuasive soft power on social media. This style is characterised by the differentiated visibilities afforded to Russia’s military, diplomatic and political roles. Deftly balancing exposure and concealment, RT Arabic performs a legitimating function - rendering Russia’s presence and power in a positive light.
Citizenship after Orientalism, 2015
This chapter provides a history of reason told through the figure of the fool. Drawing on the wor... more This chapter provides a history of reason told through the figure of the fool. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault and the naturalization of madness as mental illness, the chapter brings to light the role folly has played in this process. The argument is that folly has been implicated in establishing the ‘mimicry of madness’ as a configuration to be analysed separately to madness. This is traced in humanist literature (the chapter focuses on Erasmus’s Praise of Folly 1511/1514), and in social and cultural histories of fools where a distinction was invented between ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ folly. In the renaissance, madness as folly became useful and desirable, but madness otherwise disappeared from within courts (as an incoherent knowledge of the ‘beyond’). In these ways, folly emerged as a structure that would come to stand ‘in between’ madness and reason, marking the border that distinguished them. Such imagined binaries are also shown to play into spatial and geographical configurations. This is illustrated through drawing on a tenth century monograph by the scholar al-Nisabūri whose little book ‘Uqalā’ al-Majjanīn (in translation: The Wise Madmen) and has never been translated from Arabic in its entirety, and yet reveals the extraordinary breadth and incoherence of traditions of madness at the time, providing glimpses into experiences of madness that have largely disappeared today.
The author encounters a plethora of narrations that examine in the most beautifully chaotic of wa... more The author encounters a plethora of narrations that examine in the most beautifully chaotic of ways the reluctant hope and the lingering pain that sediment within the word, 'revolution'.
Citizenship Studies, Jan 1, 2012
European Journal of Communication, Jan 1, 2011
This edited volume sets out to examine the Europeanization of media discourse vis-à-vis advancing... more This edited volume sets out to examine the Europeanization of media discourse vis-à-vis advancing European integration and to explore its relation to political practice and the 'European democratic deficit'. The studies presented investigate patterns of communication and interaction that emerge alongside institutional and policy regulation at the EU level and these are used to draw conclusions about how conditions of Europeanization, transnationalism and globalization affect the ways democratic politics is performed.
Thesis by Deena Dajani
... I cannot even begin to thank everyone who has helped me get here today, and for that I apolog... more ... I cannot even begin to thank everyone who has helped me get here today, and for that I apologise. To my uncle and aunts, and also to Valerie, Hana, Muna, Dana, Nour, Kyriakos, my brother and my fabulous sister, a very special thank you. Tons of gratitude ...
Awards and Recognitions by Deena Dajani
I received the James Thomas Memorial Prize presented for the best postgraduate student paper at t... more I received the James Thomas Memorial Prize presented for the best postgraduate student paper at the Political Studies Association- Media and Politics specialist group’s annual conference. The paper was titled, 'Rethinking the Arab Public Sphere'
I was awarded an Overseas Research Students Awards Scheme (ORSAS) scholarship, a UK government in... more I was awarded an Overseas Research Students Awards Scheme (ORSAS) scholarship, a UK government initiative set-up to attract high-calibre international students and enabling them to pursue research degrees in the UK.
Papers by Deena Dajani
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2020
This article focuses on suspension: a process and a politics in migration governance that disable... more This article focuses on suspension: a process and a politics in migration governance that disables subjects and destabilises the state. Drawing on migrant, civic actor and policy-maker insights and experiences in the cities of Athens, Berlin and London, the discussion reveals how suspension is operationalised and enacted. As recorded across three cities, suspension has become a way to govern migration as an unequal and racialised system by obscuring, prolonging and deferring state responsibilities and migrants' access to resources and rights. By focusing on who is most likely to be suspended, and how the urban convenes both everyday bordering and new solidarities, we aim to understand the politics of migration in a volatile political and economic conjuncture. Invoking the city of refuge as an actually existing but fragile ethico-political project, we critically reflect on the currency of urban politics of sanctuary cities as redemptive spaces detached from the punitive functioning of the state. We explore how suspension is operationalised in the city through three core processes: the fracturing of legalities; the devolution of care; and the spatialising of uncertainty. We further reflect on the precarious practices care and solidarity which engage our shared humanity as opposed to enforced differences.
Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2020
This paper draws on two current UK refugee resettlement schemes, the Vulnerable Persons Resettlem... more This paper draws on two current UK refugee resettlement schemes, the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme (VPRS) and Community Sponsorship, to consider the ways in which they borrow technologies from austerity and innovate ‘border-work’. On the global level, the paper considers how VPRS outsources the UK’s border management to UNHCR. On the national level, the paper considers how Community Sponsorship shifts the responsibility for the support of refugees from the state to local communities. Finally, on the local level, the paper discusses how the borrowed technologies between austerity and migration control (outsourcing, categorising, and individualizing responsibility) shape the experiences of social workers and migrants in a northern London borough. The paper contributes to understanding how the governmentalities of austerity and migration engage in shaping and re-shaping public space through the differential regulation of subjects who come to experience shared space in fundamentally different ways.
Media, War & Conflict
This article focusses on the social media content of RT Arabic – formerly Russia Today – the Russ... more This article focusses on the social media content of RT Arabic – formerly Russia Today – the Russian state-funded international news media organisation. It presents results of a qualitative analysis of social media posts in order to assess whether and how RT Arabic constructs a strategic narrative of its involvement in the war in Syria. It also contributes to conceptualisations of how state-sponsored strategic narratives operate in practice and can be mobilised as a soft power resource. Our key finding is that while Russia’s military presence is rendered almost invisible on RT Arabic, its role as a political and diplomatic actor is highly visible. Although Syrian civilians feature as the most prominent actors, they do so mostly as helpless victims and passive witnesses. Syria is represented as a non-sovereign, dysfunctional state, vulnerable to incursion by foreign forces who are vying for power and control in the region. In RT’s representation of the conflict Russia is portrayed as coming to the aid of Syrians and Syria, as a benign presence promoting the establishment of good governance, and skilfully managing the complex diplomatic relations surrounding the conflict. Rather than using straightforward propagandistic or hard-line ideological narratives, RT Arabic creates its own style of persuasive soft power on social media. This style is characterised by the differentiated visibilities afforded to Russia’s military, diplomatic and political roles. Deftly balancing exposure and concealment, RT Arabic performs a legitimating function - rendering Russia’s presence and power in a positive light.
Citizenship after Orientalism, 2015
This chapter provides a history of reason told through the figure of the fool. Drawing on the wor... more This chapter provides a history of reason told through the figure of the fool. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault and the naturalization of madness as mental illness, the chapter brings to light the role folly has played in this process. The argument is that folly has been implicated in establishing the ‘mimicry of madness’ as a configuration to be analysed separately to madness. This is traced in humanist literature (the chapter focuses on Erasmus’s Praise of Folly 1511/1514), and in social and cultural histories of fools where a distinction was invented between ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ folly. In the renaissance, madness as folly became useful and desirable, but madness otherwise disappeared from within courts (as an incoherent knowledge of the ‘beyond’). In these ways, folly emerged as a structure that would come to stand ‘in between’ madness and reason, marking the border that distinguished them. Such imagined binaries are also shown to play into spatial and geographical configurations. This is illustrated through drawing on a tenth century monograph by the scholar al-Nisabūri whose little book ‘Uqalā’ al-Majjanīn (in translation: The Wise Madmen) and has never been translated from Arabic in its entirety, and yet reveals the extraordinary breadth and incoherence of traditions of madness at the time, providing glimpses into experiences of madness that have largely disappeared today.
The author encounters a plethora of narrations that examine in the most beautifully chaotic of wa... more The author encounters a plethora of narrations that examine in the most beautifully chaotic of ways the reluctant hope and the lingering pain that sediment within the word, 'revolution'.
Citizenship Studies, Jan 1, 2012
European Journal of Communication, Jan 1, 2011
This edited volume sets out to examine the Europeanization of media discourse vis-à-vis advancing... more This edited volume sets out to examine the Europeanization of media discourse vis-à-vis advancing European integration and to explore its relation to political practice and the 'European democratic deficit'. The studies presented investigate patterns of communication and interaction that emerge alongside institutional and policy regulation at the EU level and these are used to draw conclusions about how conditions of Europeanization, transnationalism and globalization affect the ways democratic politics is performed.
... I cannot even begin to thank everyone who has helped me get here today, and for that I apolog... more ... I cannot even begin to thank everyone who has helped me get here today, and for that I apologise. To my uncle and aunts, and also to Valerie, Hana, Muna, Dana, Nour, Kyriakos, my brother and my fabulous sister, a very special thank you. Tons of gratitude ...
I received the James Thomas Memorial Prize presented for the best postgraduate student paper at t... more I received the James Thomas Memorial Prize presented for the best postgraduate student paper at the Political Studies Association- Media and Politics specialist group’s annual conference. The paper was titled, 'Rethinking the Arab Public Sphere'
I was awarded an Overseas Research Students Awards Scheme (ORSAS) scholarship, a UK government in... more I was awarded an Overseas Research Students Awards Scheme (ORSAS) scholarship, a UK government initiative set-up to attract high-calibre international students and enabling them to pursue research degrees in the UK.
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2020
This article focuses on suspension: a process and a politics in migration governance that disable... more This article focuses on suspension: a process and a politics in migration governance that disables subjects and destabilises the state. Drawing on migrant, civic actor and policy-maker insights and experiences in the cities of Athens, Berlin and London, the discussion reveals how suspension is operationalised and enacted. As recorded across three cities, suspension has become a way to govern migration as an unequal and racialised system by obscuring, prolonging and deferring state responsibilities and migrants' access to resources and rights. By focusing on who is most likely to be suspended, and how the urban convenes both everyday bordering and new solidarities, we aim to understand the politics of migration in a volatile political and economic conjuncture. Invoking the city of refuge as an actually existing but fragile ethico-political project, we critically reflect on the currency of urban politics of sanctuary cities as redemptive spaces detached from the punitive functioning of the state. We explore how suspension is operationalised in the city through three core processes: the fracturing of legalities; the devolution of care; and the spatialising of uncertainty. We further reflect on the precarious practices care and solidarity which engage our shared humanity as opposed to enforced differences.