Dr Ashjan Ajour

Lecturer in Sociology

School of Social Sciences

Email:: Ashjan.Ajour@bcu.ac.uk

Ashjan Ajour is an award-winning researcher with a growing internationally recognized body of work. Her published book “Reclaiming Humanity in Palestinian Hunger strikes: Political Subjectivity and Decolonizing the Body” (Palgrave Macmillan 2021- Gender Studies Series) won the Palestine Book Award in 2022. Her research embraced sociology, anthropology, politics and gender studies which corresponds with the required interdisciplinary and intersectional approach. Ashjan’s research and teaching experience are situated in gender studies and feminist theories and movements; embodied protest; political subjectivity; incarceration; forced displacement; decolonization and global indigenous politics.

Her work is rooted in decolonial feminist ethnography, a methodology she continues to develop in her research. In 2024, she received a research grant from Council for British Research in the Levant (CBRL) to explore the gendered experiences of forced displacement. This research constructs the narrative of refugee women experience using a feminist analysis to examine the gendered dynamics of settler colonialism and displacement. It employs a feminist, intersectional and decolonial approach while also developing feminist methodologies grounded in women’s lived experiences.

Areas of Expertise

Qualifications

Memberships

Teaching

Research

Publications

Ajour. A. (forthcoming) "Toward a decolonial feminist humanism: Storytelling from the heart: submitted for Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism. Duke University Press - special issue of Meridians: Indigenous Feminisms Across the World (manuscript number: MERIDIANS-D-22-00058).
Ajour, A. 2021 Reclaiming Humanity: The Formation of Political Subjectivity in the Experience of Palestinian Hunger Strikers in Israeli Prisons. Palgrave Macmillan. Reclaiming Humanity in Palestinian Hunger Strikes | SpringerLink
Ajour, A. 2021 ‘The Spiritualisation of Politics and Instrumentalisation of Body in Resistance: Conceptualising Hunger Striking Subjectivity’. Cultural Politics 17 (2). Duke University Press. https://read.dukeupress.edu/cultural-politics/article-abstract/17/2/193/174058/The-Spiritualization-of-Politics-and-the
Ajour, A. and et al, 2022 ‘Empirically Measuring the Efficacy and Impact of Making Curriculum-content Racially Inclusive in the Educative Experiences of Students of Colour on the UK. The University of Leicester Institute for Inclusivity in Higher Education (ULIIHE). Evaluating the Racially Inclusive Curricula Toolkit in HE v2 (2).pdf
Ajour, A. 2021 ‘Techniques of Resistance through Weaponization of the Body During Palestinian Hunger Strikes’. Journal of Resistance Studies 7 (1). Irene Publishing. With the support of University of Massachusetts Amherst. Techniques of Resistance through Weaponization of the Body During Palestinian Hunger Strikes – Journal of Resistance Studies (resistance-journal.org)
Ajour, A. 2017 ‘The Transgressive Practices of Revolutionary Subjectivity: The Hunger Strike in Occupied Palestine”, in Tropos 4(1) – Journal for the Society of Comparative Cultural Inquiry. Ajour | The Transgressive practices of Revolutionary Subjectivity: The Hunger Strike in Occupied Palestine (2012-2016) | Tropos (ucl.ac.uk)
Ajour, A. (forthcoming) ‘Captivity, Resistance and Political Consciousness in Walid Daqqa’s Prison Literature’ Comparative Literature and Culture. ISSN 1481-4374 Purdue University Press ©Purdue University (Forthcoming) for the special Issue: Comparative Approaches to the Prison Literatures of the Middle East, North Africa, and their Diasporas.
Ajour, A. 2014 The Representations of Power and Knowledge in the Discourse of Liberal Women’s Organizations in the Post Oslo period. Muwatin (The Palestinian Institute for the Study of Democracy), Ramallah, Palestine. This was based on my MA dissertation and thanks to a Scholarship Award from Muwatin.
Ajour, A. and et al, 2013 “Needs Assessment Study of Marginalized Female Adolescents (15-19 years old)”. Mercy Crops & Riyada Consulting Firm
Ajour. A. 2012, Book Review: Women at the Crossroads: The Palestinian Women's Movement between Nationalism, Secularism and Islamism by Islah Jad. 2008. Published in North American Women Studies Association NAWSA.