Nadya Hajj

Dr. Nadya Hajj is a Visiting Scholar with the Middle East Initiative and an Associate Professor and Director of Peace and Justice Studies at Wellesley College. Her research focuses on conflict transformation and public good provisions among marginalized communities like refugees. She has 15 years of experience in qualitative research in conflict settings. With a focus on Palestinians living in refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan, her first book, Protection Amid Chaos: The Creation of Property Rights in Palestinian Refugee Camps (Columbia University Press, 2016), explores how people develop binding claims on assets and resources in challenging political and economic spaces. Her second book, Networked Refugees: Palestinian Reciprocity and Remittances in the Digital Age(University of California Press, 2021) shows how Palestinians living in refugee camps utilize Information Communication Technology platforms to motivate reciprocity—a cooperative action marked by the mutual exchange of favors and services—and informally seek aid and connection with their transnational diaspora community to solve collective dilemmas, like raising funds for funeral services, or securing other critical goods and services. Hajj holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Political Science from Emory University and a B.A. in Middle East Studies and Political Science from the University of Virginia.