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Dr Dena Qaddumi

Dr Dena Qaddumi

Fellow in City Design and Social Science

Department of Sociology

Email
d.a.qaddumi@lse.ac.uk
Room No
OLD.3.17
Languages
Arabic, English, French
Key Expertise
Postcolonial Urbanism, Public Space, Urban Conflicts, Spatial Ethnography

About me

Dena Qaddumi joined the Department of Sociology in September 2022 as Fellow in City Design and Social Science. Dena is a scholar of urban politics and the built environment with regional expertise in the Middle East and North Africa. Her research uses interdisciplinary social science and architectural methods to understand how culture, geopolitics, and colonisation are embodied in contemporary cities.

Prior to her PhD, Dena worked in architecture, urban planning, and higher education in New York, London, Palestine, and Doha. These experiences shape her transnational and comparative approach to research and teaching practice.

Expertise Details

Postcolonial Urbanism; Public Space; Urban Conflicts; Spatial Ethnography

Selected publications

Edited Volume

2018. with S. Singler. Scroope: Cambridge Architecture Journal, 27.

Articles

2017. with A. Ahmadi. ‘Scaling Down Planning in Doha Towards the Neighborhood and its Public Realm,’ QScience Connect, Shaping Qatar’s Sustainable Built Environment, 2017: qgbc.2: 1-22

2013. ‘Advancing the Struggle for Urban Justice to the Assertion of Substantive Citizenship: Challenging Ethnocracy in Tel Aviv-Jaffa,’ DPU Working Paper No. 150, University College London.

Book Chapters

2022. ‘Palaces of Power in Tunis: Entanglements of Nation and State from Independence to Revolution,’ in Architecture of the Territory: Constructing National Narrativesed. by Collective for Architecture Lebanon (Beirut: Kaph Books)

Other

2021. ‘Confronting Gender-Based Violence in Fieldwork: Potential Sites of Intervention within DPU’s PhD Programme,’ Development Planning Unit, University College London.

Research

Dena is currently writing a monograph based on her doctoral research. Tentatively titled City in Revolution: Encounters of People in Regime in Tunis, the work examines how and why key urban sites become consequential for revolution.

Her next research project will examine Palestinian city-making in the Gulf since 1948.

Dena is also coordinating the forthcoming Palestine: Spaces and Politics, an open-access bilingual project that offers resources for education and research on Palestine’s built and natural environments through a critical lens.

Dena is part of the Urban Sociology research cluster.

Teaching and PhD supervision

Dena teaches on the MSc City Design and Social Science programme, including City Design: Research Studio, Cities by Design, and Independent Project.

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