Dr Deena Dajani is a Research Officer in the Department of Media and Communications at ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳. She is working with Dr Myria Georgiou and Dr Suzi Hall on the project Resilient communities, resilient cities? Digital Makings in the City of Refuge, funded by ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳'s (IGA) as part of the Rockefeller Resilience Programme. The project explores the role of digital communication in supporting resilient urban communities, especially in response to migration. Dr Dajani’s research contributes to understanding how technology enhances – or hinders – new formations and imaginings of community between receiving and arriving populations.
Prior to joining ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳, Dr Dajani worked as a Research Consultant with Professor Marie Gillespie at The Open University on the AHRC funded project ‘Reframing Russia’ and examined RT’s coverage of the war in Syria and the blurring of boundaries between news, information, propaganda, and public diplomacy. She also worked on a joint collaborative project between The Open University, the UN World Food Programme, and UN Women, which explored the role of digital technologies (including blockchain) in supporting, or indeed discomfiting, refugees. Dr Dajani conducted focus groups and interviews at Al-Azraq and Al-Zaatari refugee camps in Jordan.
Dr Dajani has also worked with Professor Engin Isin, then at The Open University, on the ERC funded project ‘Oecumene: Citizenship after Orientalism’ which sought to open-up the boundaries of citizenship – by exploring how the concept is renewed and reconfigured around the globe – as a necessary response to the processes by which Europe is considered the birthplace of ‘universal’ ideas such as democracy, citizenship, and rights.
Between 2015 and early 2018 Dr Dajani worked in the media industry at the newly launched Alaraby Television, where she set up the International Press Desk and worked on an investigative project, tracing billions of squandered Libyan public money through Libya’s sovereign wealth fund (LIA). The project culminated in a documentary which Dr Dajani co-produced, as well as a series of articles.