Dr Mai Taha

Dr Mai Taha

Assistant Professor in Human Rights

Department of Sociology

Room No
STC.S206
Languages
Arabic, English
Key Expertise
Human Rights, International Law, Marxism, Labour, Feminism, Colonialism

About me

Dr Mai Taha is an Assistant Professor in Human Rights at the Department of Sociology. Before joining LSE, she was a Lecturer in Law at Goldsmiths, University of London. Previously, she was an Assistant Professor in International Human Rights Law and Justice at the American University in Cairo (AUC), and a Visiting Assistant Professor at York University, Canada. Mai was also a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University. She received her doctoral degree from the University of Toronto.

Expertise Details

Human Rights; International Law; Marxism; Labour; Social Reproduction; Feminism; Colonialism

Selected publications

Taha, M. 2024. History, Contestation, and the Double: On Teaching Diversity and Self-Determination in International Law. University of Toronto Law Journal, 74 (1). pp. 151-159.

Taha, M. 2023. Thinking Through the Home: Work, Rent, and the Reproduction of SocietySocial Research: an International Quarterly, 90 (4). pp.837-858.

Salem, S. and Taha, M., 2023. On Alienation and Bitterness: Thinking Through Dhat with Latifa al-Zayyat. Kohl: A Journal for Body and Gender Research

Taha, M. 2023. Human Rights and Communist Internationalism: On Inji Aflatoun and the Surrealists, in Portraits of Women in International Law: New Names and Forgotten Faces, Immi Tallgren, ed. Oxford University Press, pp. 493-502.

Taha, M. 2022. The Comic and the Absurd: On Colonial Law in Revolutionary PalestineOsgoode Hall Law Journal, 59 (1), pp. 189-223.

Taha, M. 2021. Law, Class Struggle and Nervous Breakdowns, in Anne Orford, Kathryn Greenman, Anna Saunders and Ntina Tzouvala (eds.), Revolutions in International Law: The Legacies of 1917. Cambridge University Press.

Taha, M. 2019. From Cairo to Jerusalem: Law, Labour, Time and CatastropheLaw and Critique, 30 (3), pp. 243-264.

Salem, S. and Taha, M., 2019. Social Reproduction and Empire in an Egyptian CenturyRadical Philosophy.

Taha, M. 2019. Drinking Water by the Sea: Real and Unreal Property in the Mixed Courts of Egypt, in Daniel S. Margolies, Umut Özsu, Maïa Pal and Ntina Tzouvala, Standards and Sovereigns: Legal Histories of Extraterritoriality. Routledge.

Taha, M. 2017. Reimagining Bandung for Women at Work in Egypt: law and the woman between the factory and the ‘social factory’, in Luis Eslava, Michael Fakhri and Vasuki Nesiah (eds.), Bandung, Global History, and International Law: Critical Pasts and Pending Futures Cambridge University Press.

Taha, M. 2016. Reading Class in International Law: The Labour Question in Interwar Egypt. Social and Legal Studies: An International Journal, 25 (5).

Taha, M. 2014. The Egyptian Revolution in and Out of the Juridical Space: An Inquiry into Labour Law and the Workers’ Movement in Egypt. International Journal of Law in Context, 10, (2).

Taha, M. 2011. Review Essay— The Mystic Wand of Participation: An Appraisal of Mark Mazower’s No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United NationsGerman Law Journal, 12 (7).

Other Publications

Taha, M. 2024. The Home and the Reproduction of Society: On Work, Rent and the Reach of Capital. Marxist Sociology Blog: Theory, Research, Politics.

Nassar, A., Madbouly, M., Ezzat, A., Abazeed A., Abdelrahman, N., Agha, M., El Khachab, C., Elwakil, A., Mourad, L., and Taha, M. 2023. Objects, memories, and storytelling: experiments in narrating ideas of home. City: Analysis of Urban Change, Theory, Action.

Taha, M. 2023. The People of the Archive: On the Oral History Tradition of Palestine. Archive Stories.

Taha, M. 2021. Review of Cait Storr, International Status in the Shadow of Empire: Nauru and

the Histories of International Law. European Journal of International Law, 32 (3).

Taha, M. 2020. Reflections on Marxism and Law. Legal Form.

Taha, M. 2019. Decolonization in International Law. Oxford Bibliographies in International Law.

Taha, M. 2016. Histories of International Labour Governmentality. Social and Legal Studies Blog, November.

 

Taha, M. 2024. The Home and the Reproduction of Society: On Work, Rent and the Reach of Capital. Marxist Sociology Blog: Theory, Research, Politics.

Nassar, A., Madbouly, M., Ezzat, A., Abazeed A., Abdelrahman, N., Agha, M., El Khachab, C., Elwakil, A., Mourad, L., and Taha, M. 2023Objects, memories, and storytelling: experiments in narrating ideas of homeCity: Analysis of Urban Change, Theory, Action.

Taha, M. 2023. The People of the Archive: On the Oral History Tradition of PalestineArchive Stories.

Taha, M. 2021. Review of Cait Storr, International Status in the Shadow of Empire: Nauru and

the Histories of International LawEuropean Journal of International Law, 32 (3).

Taha, M. 2020. Reflections on Marxism and LawLegal Form.

Taha, M. 2019. Decolonization in International LawOxford Bibliographies in International Law.

Taha, M. 2016. Histories of International Labour GovernmentalitySocial and Legal Studies Blog, November.

 

Research

Mai’s research explores the different scales of revolution that draw out historical tensions arising in workers’ movements, feminist movements and anticolonial liberation movements. She has developed this research in two key strands. The first engages with these questions in the context of international law, human rights, and international institutions. The second engages with them in the context of labour and social reproduction, taking on the home space as a central site of theorisation and critique. Within sociology, her work intervenes in research and debates in socio-legal studies, and the sociology of gender, labour, and empire, while attending to the importance of interdisciplinarity.

Mai has written primarily in the context of the Middle East and North Africa in the colonial and postcolonial periods, examining the complexities of historical understandings of race, gender and class within law, culture, and society.

She is currently working on three research projects:

The first is a book project with Sara Salem, entitled: Sonic Lives: On the Radio and Anticolonial Solidarity. The book focuses on anticolonial sound, exploring the role of radio in liberation struggles across Africa and the Middle East from the 1950s to the 1990s, drawing out different maps of solidarity and internationalism.

The second is a research project on liberation struggles in international law, focusing on the period of the 1960s and 1970s, which saw the codification of many anticolonial provisions, and on key liberation movements in the Middle East.

The third is on the home and the unhomely, which explores new approaches to social reproduction theory and forms of resistance in the Middle East, engaging with the sociology of gender, cultural studies, and Marxist feminism.

Mai also co-directs Archive Stories with Sara Salem, which is a web-based on working with creative and non-traditional archives. The project has, so far, included academics, archivists, librarians, activists, musicians, film makers, designers, chefs and students.

Mai is part of the Politics and Human Rights research cluster.

Teaching and PhD supervision

Mai teaches on the MSc Human Rights programme convening courses on Approaches to Human Rights and Patriachy and Society.