Rafeef Ziadah will give lecture on the COVID-19 crisis and de-development in Palestine. Mark Ayyash will act as discussant for the event. 

Rafeef Ziadah is a Lecturer in Politics and Public Policy in the Department of International Development at King's College London. Her research focuses broadly on political economy, gender and race, with a particular focus on the Middle East and East Africa. She holds a PhD in Politics from York University, Canada. Previously she was a Lecturer in the Politics and International Studies department, SOAS University of London and Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the 'Military Mobilities and Mobilising Movements in the Middle East' project. This ESRC funded project explored the politics of transport infrastructures in the Arabian Peninsula and culminated in the production of the website Sinews of War and Trade.

Mark Muhannad Ayyash was born and raised in Silwan, Al-Quds (Jerusalem), before immigrating to Canada, where he is now Professor of Sociology at Mount Royal University. He is the author of A Hermeneutics of Violence (UTP, 2019). He teaches and writes in the areas of social and political theory, postcolonial theory, the study of violence, exiling writing, Canada-Palestine relations, and decolonial movements, particularly focusing on the Palestinian struggle. He has published several articles in journals such as Interventions, the European Journal of International Relations, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and the European Journal of Social Theory. He also has a co-edited book on Protests and Generations in the MENA and the Mediterranean, and has written opinion pieces for Al-Jazeera, The Baffler, Middle East Eye, Mondoweiss, The Breach, Politics Today, and Middle East Monitor. He is currently writing a book on settler colonial sovereignty in Palestine-Israel.

James Putzel is Professor of Development Studies and served as the Director of the Crisis States Research Centre. He headed the Centre's research programme on Crisis States, which was funded by the Department for International Development of the UK government. 

This talk is part of the Cutting Edge Issues in Development Thinking & Practice, 2021/22, series, a high-profile lecture series run by the Department of International Development at LSE and organised by Professor James Putzel and Professor in Practice Duncan Green.

The Department of International Development promotes interdisciplinary postgraduate teaching and research on processes of social, political and economic development and change. 

Twitter Hashtag for this series: #CuttingEdge2021