Charlotte Al-Khalili

I am a Leverhulme Early Career fellow in anthropology at the University of Sussex. My work focuses on revolutionary politics and subjectivities and religious temporalities and practices in Syria, Turkey and Lebanon.
My research explores the effects of the 2011 revolution and its aftermaths on displaced Syrians’ lifeworlds and examines Syrians’ evolving understandings, imagination and conceptualizations of revolution and displacement.
IThis is the basis of my monograph ‘Waiting for the Revolution to End: Syrian displacement, time, subjectivity’ in which I analyse how the concept of ‘revolution’ is redefined by the Syrian experience, understanding it as a multi-dimensional and multi-scalar phenomenon that affected Syrians’ lifeworld in all its layers. I also pursue my reflexions on revolution and/in anthropology in a co-edited volume Revolution Beyond the Event (UCL, 2023).
In my previous research project (labEx HaStec) I studied the role of predestination and the figure of the martyr in the Syrian revolution and migration.
In my previous research projects I explored the genealogy of non-violence in Syria focusing on the Darayya local council and Abdelakram al Saqqa’s halaqa; and I examined the disputed concept of hospitality and Syrians’ guest status in Turkey (2023). In my current project I focus on the material traces of multiple forms of political violence, its religious understandings and the everyday effects of polycrisis among impoverished communities in and around Beirut.