In this penultimate episode, Yara Shawky Shahin has a frank discussion with her colleague Yasmine D’Alessandro about how to create programmes of real economic empowerment for women in the Middle East and North Africa based on their decades long experience working with international and grassroots organisations in the region.

Yara Shawky Shahin is an Senior Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity and a researcher and civil society professional with more than 20 years of experience in the fields of development, human rights, policy analysis, and not-for-profit management. Yara has worked with different organisations including UNHCR, Save the Children, and UNDP in programs supporting youth participation, inclusion, and integration. With the Danish Egyptian Dialogue Institute, and recently Ford Foundation, her work focused on programs supporting media reform, freedom of expression, digital rights, and the impact of technology on society as well as advocating for inclusive social protections across countries of the MENA region.

Yasmine D’Alessandro is a senior development expert with over two decades of experience in the gender, economic empowerment, skills development and civil society fields. Yasmine has a solid grounding in program design, strategic planning, and program management across a wide spectrum of organisations, ranging from consultancy firms and international NGOs to independent grant-making institutions. Over the course of her career, she has successfully led initiatives that address complex social and economic challenges, in communities such as rural Upper Egypt, remote communities in Yemen, refugee camps in Jordan and pockets of poverty in urban centres in various countries, always with a focus on building sustainable and locally grounded impact. She has been consistently committed to bridging the gap between policy and practice, ensuring that programs are not only well-designed but also contextually relevant and responsive to community needs.

Find out more about Yara's work here: https://afsee.atlanticfellows.lse.ac.uk/en-gb/fellows/2023/yara-shawky-shahin


4.4 Creating Real Economic Empowerment for Women in MENA

In this episode, Diana Magdy, a gender equality specialist, feminist researcher and oral historian has a conversation with Professor Hoda Elsadda unpacking the politics of archiving, revealing archives as spaces of power and resistance rather than neutral repositories.

Diana Magdy is an Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity and a feminist researcher and gender equality specialist from Cairo, Egypt. She has 12 years of experience in gender and development. As a feminist oral historian, she has worked on documenting the Egyptian feminist movement, producing feminist knowledge in Arabic, and archive building. In this area, she published a paper titled ‘Narrating Gender in Egypt's Public Sphere: The Archive of Women’s Oral History’.

Professor Hoda Elsadda is a feminist activist, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cairo University, and Co-founder of the Women and Memory Forum. She previously held a Chair in the Study of the Contemporary Arab World at Manchester University, and was Co-Director of the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World in the UK. Her research interests are in the areas of gender studies, comparative literature and oral history. She is author of Gender, Nation and the Arabic Novel: Egypt: 1892-2008 (Edinburgh UP and Syracuse UP, 2012); and co-editor of Oral History in Times of Change: Gender, Documentation and the Making of Archives (Cairo Papers, 35:1, 2018).

Find out more about Diana's work: https://afsee.atlanticfellows.lse.ac.uk/en-gb/fellows/2023/diana-magdy

Find out more about Hoda's work: https://wmf.org.eg/en/member/hoda-elsadda/

4.3 Gendering the Archive: A Catalyst for Change in Women’s Rights in Egypt

Manar Alzraiy, a Palestinian education professional dedicated to resilience and equity in crisis-affected schools, brings together her colleagues from Gaza to talk about education since October 7 2023, how Israel's war on Gaza and forced displacement has destroyed the education sector, and what is needed to rebuild it both physically and intellectually. These interviews took place in the summer of 2025.

Manar Alzraiy is an Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity and an education professional from Gaza, where she worked for ten years with UNRWA. At LSE, Manar conducted research on embedded inequalities in how United Nations humanitarian principles are applied in UN schools in Palestine. She is currently a fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. 

Dr Alaa Ali Aladini is an Assistant Professor of Curriculum and Instruction (TEFL). He has over 23 years of experience with UNRWA-Gaza, serving as an English teacher, educational supervisor and education specialist. Dr Aladini brings extensive expertise in language education, teacher training and inclusive education. 

Asma Mustafa is an English language teacher who received the title ‘Global Teacher of the Year 2020’ from the AKS Education Award in India, and the title ‘Palestine’s Innovative Teacher of the Year 2022’ for her applied eTwinning approach in English language teaching. 

Dr Mohammed Awad Shbeir holds a PhD in Educational Administration. He is also an education supervisor as well as an academic and educational researcher specialising in education and social issues.

To find out more about Manar's work: https://afsee.atlanticfellows.lse.ac.uk/en-gb/fellows/2023/manar-alzraiy.

4.2 Keeping Education Going in Gaza

In this first episode of season 4, Hamidreza Vasheghanifarahani speaks with Azadeh Sobout and Rindala about how transnational solidarity networks can strengthen efforts towards social change. While both Azadeh and Rindala focus their discussion on Syria and the 2011 Revolution, the conversation explores broader approaches and challenges to political organising and revolutionary politics that can be applied globally.

Hamidreza Vasheghanifarahani an Iranian researcher, activist and an Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity. Currently, he works at the LSE International Inequalities Institute as a researcher. He has worked with and for civil society organisations and communities as a researcher, project manager and trainer, with a focus on civil society and community mobilisation, children’s rights, and disability.

Azadeh Sobout is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast. She is an Iranian activist, writer, and educator rooted in refugee justice, indigenous solidarity, Palestinian liberation, anti-racist, feminist, anti-imperialist, and anti-capitalist movements for over a decade.

Rindala is a Syrian member of the People’s Want transnational network and a co-founder of the cooperative space Darna in Montreuil, France.

To learn more about the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity: https://afsee.atlanticfellows.lse.ac.uk/
The Peoples Want: https://thepeopleswant.org/en/about_us
Hamidreza Vasheghanifarahani: https://afsee.atlanticfellows.lse.ac.uk/fellows/2022/hamidreza-vasheghanifarahani

4.1 Building Transnational Solidarity Networks of Resistance

How did the radio, a major technological development in the history of sound and music, change the social, cultural and political landscape of the region?

In this last episode of the season, we speak to audio curator Hazem Jamjoum, and Elias Anastas and Saeed Abu Jaber, two of the co-founders of the Palestinian radio station Radio Al Hara. We find out more about the history of the radio in the region and also it's present – specifically looking at how this new technology was used by imperialists, technocrats, intellectuals and liberation groups to broadcast and connect groups. Through Radio Al Hara's activity, we learn how radio works in similar ways to this day.

Hazem Jamjoum is an audio curator and researcher with an interest in history of audio and music recording in the Arab world

Elias Anastas is a co-founder of Radio Al Hara. He is an architect based in Bethlehem, Palestine and runs an architectural studio with his brother Yousef called AAU ANASTAS. They also run Wonder Cabinet, a not-for-profit cultural platform.

Saeed Abu Jaber is one of the founders of radio al hara. He is a graphic designer and runs a studio called Turbo in Amman, Jordan.

www.radioalhara.net/ [https://gate.sc/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.radioalhara.net%2F&token=faab03-1-1717625114131]

3.10 The Power of Radio

This episode explores the link between technology, warfare and nationalism. Turkey and Israel are two countries in the region who have developed their technological capabilities for both domestic and international conflict. We speak to two researchers who have been tracing the use of military technologies and the effect they have had on a sense of nationalism amongst their populations.

Digdem Solaytin Colella speaks to the regime-boosting effects of drone production in Turkey whilst Sophia Goodfriend provides a more granular analysis of how military technology has transformed a new generation of Israeli soldiers’ views of Palestinians and Israeli occupation.

Digdem is Assistant Professor of Politics and Public Policy at the University of Aberdeen. Her research concentrates on the politics of corruption, mechanisms of state capture and regime survival, autocratic bureaucracies & illiberal governance, and Southeast European and Turkish politics.

Sophia is a PhD candidate at Duke University’s Department of Cultural Anthropology and Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Fellow. Her academic work examines the ethics and impact of new surveillance technologies in Israel and Palestine.

3.9 War Tech and Nationalism in Turkey and Israel

What does the era of ‘big data’ mean for development technologies in MENA? How can data be used for good, to ensure projects working with vulnerable communities such as informal workers and women are seen and supported? What kind of repercussions does poor data collection have on emerging technologies? How can data-driven research and technology improve prospects for the next generation in the region seeking work, and what does it mean for the future of labour in the region?

These are some of the questions we posed to Nagla Rizk, Professor of Economics at the American University in Cairo in episode 8.

Nagla is Professor of Economics and Founding Director of the Access to Knowledge for Development Center (A2K4D) at the American University in Cairo’s School of Business. Nagla’s area of research, teaching and advocacy is the economics of knowledge, technology and development, with focus on governance of responsible data and Artificial Intelligence, fair work in the platform economy, innovation, gender and inclusion in Egypt, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

3.8 Data for Development with Nagla Rizk

Writer and art critic, Rahel Aima, who grew up and currently lives in Dubai, talks to us about living in the Gulf, a region rapidly developing itself as the place to be for smart cities and high-tech living.

Rahel explores a concept she has been thinking about for some time, the Khaleeji Ideology, which meets at the intersection of technology, economy, the environment and nation building, as a way of understanding developments in the contemporary Gulf.

This episode also features comment from Michael Mason, Director of the LSE Middle East Centre and Professor of Environmental Geography at LSE, who explores the rise of “progressive” urban development projects in the Gulf, and whether technology can be the solution to pressing environmental challenges of our time.

Rahel Aima is a writer, critic, and editor from Dubai. She writes about art, technology and the Gulf. Her work has been published in Artforum, Artnews, ArtReview, The Atlantic, Bookforum, frieze, Mousse and Vogue Arabia, amongst others.

Read Rahel’s ‘The Khaleeji Ideology’ here: https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/horizons/498319/the-khaleeji-ideology/.

3.7 Living in the Future with Rahel Aima

How can art complicate claims of progress, innovation and the use of rapidly developing emerging technologies in MENA? In this episode, Cima Chehab speaks to visual artist Nadim Choufi about how he incorporates technology into his artwork both as subject matter and as medium.

In the conversation, they discuss Nadim’s own artistic practice, his use of “lecture performances” and the question of whether life is truly enhanced by progress and technology, which is one of the main questions that underpins his work. Nadim also explores emerging art in the Middle East and how technology has transformed a new generation of artists – from digital illustrations to meme accounts.

Nadim is a visual artist living in Beirut. He primarily focuses on the material histories and futures of innovation and desire, their social and political driving forces, and the visual and literary practices that surround them. He is a 2024 resident at the Jan van Eyck Academy. Currently he is the curator of the film programme of the 2024 festival edition of transmediale and a researcher at Haven For Artists. Previously he was co-Programs Director at Beirut Art Center.

https://nadimchoufi.com/

3.6 Art Meaning and Art Making with Nadim Choufi

Majd Al-Shihabi of 'Palestine Open Maps' and Sana Yazigi of the 'Creative Memory of the Syrian Revolution' talk to us about how they have centered their archiving processes around maps, and what digital archiving can do for Palestinian and Syrian community-building.

This episode also features comment from Dr Sara Salem and Dr Mai Taha of LSE, who explore the importance of creative archiving through their project 'Archive Stories'.

Note: this episode was recorded before October 7, 2023.

Majd Al-Shihabi is a technologist turned urban planner, turned technologisturbanplanner. Majd is co-founder of Palestine Open Maps, a platform for searching, navigating, downloading and digitizing historical maps of Palestine. Majd was the inaugural Bassel Khartabil Free Culture Fellow which enabled him to start Palestine Open Maps.

https://palopenmaps.org/en

Sana Yazigi is a graphic designer and cultural activist. She is the founder of Creative Memory of the Syrian Revolution, a project that documents all types of creative expressions produced since the Syrian Revolution in 2011 until the present day. She is also the founder of The Cultural Diary, Syria's first bilingual monthly cultural agenda (2007-2012).

https://creativememory.org/

https://archive-stories.com/ 

3.5 Archiving and Mapping Technologies in Palestine and Syria

This is Instant Coffee, your quick fix of everything Middle East. This podcast, brought to you by the LSE Middle East Centre, features conversations with activists, artists, journalists and more from the region.

Listen to our latest season on what it takes to effect meaningful change. Out now.