People

Mark Griffiths

Principal Investigator

I am a political geographer based in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology at Newcastle University. I’ve spent many years researching power and the un/making of colonial space in Palestine with a specific focus on checkpoints and bureaucracy. My recent work is published in a range of journals including Progress in Human Geography, Political Geography, Society & Space, and Security Dialogue. I manage the War and Geos project and am happy to field enquiries about our work at mark.griffiths@ncl.ac.uk

Kali Rubaii

Co-Investigator

I am Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Purdue University. My work focuses on displacement, health justice, and the environmental impacts of war. Through forensic ethnography along the supply chains of war, I document the long-term material impacts of extractive industry and military violence on people’s lives. I lead projects that investigate how Iraq’s concrete industry is instrumental to militarised privatisation in post-war reconstruction; how displaced communities travel to and from their land during episodes of military violence, and how the epidemic of congenital anomalies in Fallujah is understood as a figure of long-term, intergenerational toxification. As Co-Investigator on the War and Geos project I co-ordinate research activities in Iraq.

Abeer Butmeh

Co-Investigator

I am a water and environmental engineer and the coordinator of PENGON-Friends of the Earth Palestine. I work closely with affected communities, the youth sector and with local government councils in addressing the environmental problems faced by the Palestinian people and have more than 15 years’ experience in this area of work. I have researched different environmental topics to do with water and climate change and as Co-Investigator on the War and Geos project I co-ordinate research activities in Gaza.

Mohamed El-Shewy

Postdoctoral Researcher

I am an early career scholar with an interdisciplinary focus on politics, aesthetics, and geography in the ‘Middle East’. I gained my PhD in Politics and International Studies from the University of Warwick in 2022 and am now based at Newcastle University as a Postdoctoral Research on the War and Geos project.

Rasha Abu Dayyeh

Project co-ordinator

I am a water and environmental specialist with over 15 years of experience in the field of water treatment and environmental awareness education. I work with women on issues of water quality and environmental stewardship on the PENGON Environmental and Climate Justice Programme in Palestine. On the War and Geos project I work alongside Abeer to co-ordinate research activities in Gaza.