Staff Profile

I joined Newcastle University in July 2020 as a Lecturer in International Politics of Gender. I am a political ethnographer of humanitarianism in 'the Middle East.' My research focuses on questions of gender (particularly men and masculinities) refugee recognition, vulnerability, labour market integration, and race and racism in humanitarianism. My work sits at the intersections of feminist international politics, Middle East politics, and refugee and humanitarian studies.

My research has been published in peer review journals including International Feminist Journal of Politics, Middle East Critique, and Review of International Studies, and has been awarded prizes by multiple professional associations, including the British International Studies Association, the Political Studies Association, and the Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Section of the International Studies Association.

I am a member of the Council (Trustee) of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES), an Independent Fellow at the Centre for Transnational Development and Collaboration, and an Affiliated Researcher at the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute.

Between 2018 and 2020, I was a Senior Researcher at the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute at the University of Freiburg and a Teaching Fellow at University College Freiburg. I received my PhD in Politics and International Relations from SOAS University of London in 2018.

Follow the links for my Google Scholar profile and Academia.edu page. I tweet at @lewiseturner. My pronouns are he/him.

My research focuses on humanitarianism in 'the Middle East.' It explores questions of gender (particularly men and masculinities), vulnerability, refugee encampment, labour market integration, and race and racism within humanitarian work. I aim to offer critical, feminist perspectives on underexplored aspects of humanitarianism,

My work has been published in multiple leading peer review journals within the fields of Middle East politics, International Relations, and feminist international politics. I have published articles on refugee encampment in Mediterranean Politics, the Jordan Compact in Middle East Critique, refugee men's position in humanitarianism in International Feminist Journal of Politics, the politics of refugee vulnerability in Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society, the racial politics of portrayals of refugee entrepreneurs in Review of International Studies, and sexual violence against men in Journal of Humanitarian Affairs. My work has also recently (2021) appeared in two edited volumes, in which I have written about encampment as a tool of migration governance, and EU policy towards Jordan in the context of its Pact on Migration and Asylum.

I have also written shorter articles in Forced Migration Review and Civil Society Review, published in both English and Arabic, on refugee resettlement (English Arabic), the Jordan Compact (English Arabic) and humanitarianism and masculinities (English and Arabic). I have furthermore written numerous shorter essays, blog posts, and media pieces, including for The Middle East Institute, The LSE Middle East Centre, and Al Jazeera.

My PhD thesis, which was completed at SOAS University of London, was awarded the 2019 Michael Nicholson Thesis Prize by the British International Studies Association, the Shirin M Rai Prize in International Relations by the Political Studies Association, and was joint runner-up in the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies' Leigh Douglas Memorial Prize. It gave an ethnographic account of the governance of refugee men in Za'tari Refugee Camp in Jordan, and was funded by an ESRC Doctoral Studentship.

I am currently working on a book manuscript on the position of refugee men and masculinities within humanitarianism, and undertaking work as part of EU Horizon2020 Project ASILE, which studies the interactions between emerging international protection systems and the United Nations Global Compact for Refugees (UN GCR). Within this project, my research is centred on questions of refugee status, rights, and vulnerability, with a focus on Jordan. In the future, I plan to continue my investigations into different aspects of gender and sexuality in humanitarian work in the Arab world.

During academic year 2021-2022, I am the Module Leader for POL3128: The Politics of Gender and Sexuality in the Middle East. I will also be supervising undergraduate dissertations (POL3046). 

My office hours during Semester 2 (term time only) will be on Wednesdays from 10.00 - 13.00 and will typically be held on Zoom. Please email me for the meeting link. 

In addition to my specialist teaching in gender and sexuality, I have a wide range of teaching experience in the field of International Politics, at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. At Newcastle I have taught Middle East politics and international politics (POL2012, POL1032 and POL2078), as well as supervised undergraduate projects.

Prior to arriving at Newcastle, at SOAS University of London I taught on courses including International Politics of Human Rights, Introduction to International Relations, and Government and Politics of the Middle East. At the University of Freiburg, I designed and convened a new course entitled Critical International Relations: Feminist, Postcolonial and Indigenous Perspectives. I have also supervised undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations on diverse topics including volunteer humanitarianism in Calais, human rights work in Palestine, decolonial approaches to development, authoritarianism in Turkey, and refugee politics in Lebanon.

• Turner L. Governing, Experiencing and Contesting Camps and Encampment. In: Carmel, E; Lenner, K; Paul, R, ed. Handbook of Governance and Politics of Migration. Edward Elgar, 2021, pp.279-290.
• Turner L. The Clothesline Swing. By Danny Ramadan. Journal of Refugee Studies 2021, feab031.
• Turner L. Internal Solidarity, External Migration Management: The EU Pact and Migration Policy Towards Jordan. In: Carrera, S; Geddes, A, ed. The EU Pact on Migration and Asylum in Light of the United Nations Global Compact on Refugees: International Experiences on Containment and Mobility and their Impacts on Trust and Rights. Florence: European University Institute, 2021, pp.195-204.
• Touquet H, Chynoweth S, Martin S, Reis C, Myrttinen H, Schulz P, Turner L, Duriesmith D. From “It rarely happens” to “It’s worse for men”: Dispelling misconceptions about sexual violence against men and boys in conflict and displacement. Journal of Humanitarian Affairs 2020, 2(3), 25-34.
• Turner L. Syrian Refugee Men in Za‘tari Camp: Humanitarianism, Masculinities, and “Vulnerabilities”. Civil Society Review 2020, 1(4), 48-59.
• Turner L. '#Refugees can be entrepreneurs too!’ Humanitarianism, race, and the marketing of Syrian refugees. Review of International Studies 2020, 46(1), 137-155.
• Turner L. The Politics of Labeling Refugee Men as “Vulnerable”. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society 2021, 28(1), 1-23.
• Turner L. Syrian Refugee Men as Objects of Humanitarian Care. International Feminist Journal of Politics 2019, 21(4), 595-616.
• Lenner K, Turner L. Making Refugees Work? The Politics of Integrating Syrian Refugees into the Labor Market in Jordan. Middle East Critique 2019, 28(1), 65-95.
• Lenner K, Turner L. Learning from the Jordan Compact. Forced Migration Review 2018, 57, 48-51.
• Turner L. Who will resettle single Syrian men?. Forced Migration Review 2017, 54, 29-31.
• Turner L. Are Syrian men vulnerable too? Gendering the Syria refugee response. Middle East Institute, 2016. Available at: https://www.mei.edu/publications/are-syrian-men-vulnerable-too-gendering-syria-refugee-response.
• Turner L. Explaining the (Non-)Encampment of Syrian Refugees: Security, Class and the Labour Market in Lebanon and Jordan. Mediterranean Politics 2015, 20(3), 386-404.
• Turner L. On encampment and gendered vulnerabilities: A critical analysis of the UK’s vulnerable persons relocation scheme for Syrian refugees. Oxford Monitor of Forced Migration 2015, 5(2), 21-25.