I studied anthropology/non-Western Sociology at the Vrije Universiteit (Amsterdam) with a specialization in Ethnic and Minority Studies. Additionally, I took semesters in Anthropology & Sociology at Goldsmiths University of London, and Arabic and Politics at Birzeit University.
My MA thesis focused on the question of national identity amongst university students in Palestine (West Bank) after the first Intifada:'Palestinian Students' Identity in question: Islamisation, Nationality and the Struggle'.
Started working as a counselor in Amsterdam [setting up projects and influencing policies regarding (ethnic) minority youth, something I cared about politically and personally. With local politics I couldn't change much of the structural inequalities, moreover: the academic itch began to annoy, thus in 2001 embarked on a PhD research in Palestine. During my MA fieldwork in 1998-1999 I noticed the fast growth of Internet cafes and ICT-based companies in Palestine. The new research looked at the very Palestinian internet actors involved in this process: the producers and consumers of the internet. The internet offered new possibilities with regards to mobility and interactivity, but also a sense of empowerment and what I came to see as the constructing of an 'imagined' online communities amid the height of the Al Aqsa' Intifada when I was on fieldwork in Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon. The nature, style and political-economies of these virtual communities and cyber activism remained my research focus. In 2008 I was awarded a Rubicon grant for a postdoc at the Oxford Internet Institute looking at the implementation of Web 2.0 in political activist organizing in Palestine and Lebanon. I stayed in Oxford teaching and researching online activism and media. I currently study the general impact of the internet in the political dynamics of the Arab world pre-and-post revolutions. With a Leverhulme early career grant and continue with this research from 2013 to 2016 at CAMRI (University of Westminster), UK.
Meanwhile, I write about Race, Racism and Islamophobia in the Netherlands and do what is feasible in grassroots anti-racism/anti-war movements.
