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Staff Profile

Dr Una McGahern

Senior Lecturer in Politics

  • Email: una.mcgahern@ncl.ac.uk
  • Telephone: +44 (0)191 208 3644
  • Address: Room 4.22
    Politics Department
    Henry Daysh Building
    Newcastle University
    NE1 7RU
Background

Background

I am interested in issues relating to security, mobility and space in Palestine/Israel. My research is ethnographic and interdisciplinary in nature and engages a range of methods to document hidden histories of violence, new and emerging patterns of action and interaction, as well as spaces of resistance and hope.  


I am co-convenor of the GPS MENA (Middle East and North Africa) Research Group, Trustee for the British International Studies Association (BISA), and Associate Editor of the interdisciplinary journal Mobilities.


Qualifications

  • HEA Full Fellow (Newcastle University)
  • DPhil in Government and International Affairs (Durham University)
  • MA in Research Methods of the Middle East (Durham University)
  • BA in Applied Languages and Intercultural Studies (Dublin City University) 


Research

My research examines the relationship between security, mobility and space in Palestine/Israel, with a commitment to interdisciplinary approaches and ethnographic methods and a focus on the experiences of neglected and minoritised communities.


My first book, Palestinian Christians in Israel (Routledge 2011), interrogated state attitudes towards non-Muslims in a Jewish state through the lens of ethnocratic theory. This formed the basis of my subsequent research on the impact of Israeli state policy and policing on Palestinian communities in Israel which was published in International Political Sociology (2016), Security Dialogue (2016) and Political Geography (2017).


Since then, my research has focused on issues of mobility and space as it relates to education and place. One strand of this research focuses on the everyday cross-border movements of Palestinians. This includes work on the socio-political significance of recreational group running in the city of Jerusalem (Mobilities 2019) and the cross-border movements of Palestinian students from Israel who study at universities in the West Bank (Mobilities 2023).


A second strand of this research explores the particular geo-political and economic significance of Palestinian university campuses in producing alternative forms and spaces of resistance through education. This includes recent work spotlighting the university campuses of the Arab American University of Palestine in Jenin (Political Geography 2024) and Khadouri campus in Tulkarem (Geopolitics 2025). I am currently working on a CBRL-funded project on higher education and the right to the city in Jerusalem. 


Current Funded Projects

  • Higher Education and the Right to the City in Jerusalem: A Spatial History of Al Quds University (with Rawan Nusseibeh (UCL), funded by Council for British Research in the Levant Project Grant (2025-26)


Areas of potential PhD research supervision (not exhaustive):

  • Contentious politics, social movements and protest
  • Political mobilisation and repression
  • Ethnopolitics, ethnic minority rights and struggles
  • The study of war and state violence
  • Forms and theories of resistance and liberation
  • Urban spaces, policing and surveillance
  • Issues of power, security, mobility and space
  • Borders, border spaces, cross-border mobilities
  • The politics of everyday life 
  • Spatial (in)justice
  • Ethnographic research methods


I welcome applications for PhD supervision in any of the above areas.


Current PhD co-supervision:

  • Michael Mo (2024-present) 'The interplay between affective polarisation among elites and the public in social movements: The case of Hong Kong and Taiwan' 
  • Tamara Tamimi (2021-present) 'Delivering Justice for Palestinians through International Law? Between Expectations and Challenges' (Queen's University Belfast)
  • Will Lloyd (2020-2025) 'No Woman is Limited: An Ethnography of Running, Feminism and Development in Nepal' (Durham University)


Past PhD co-supervision (completed PhD projects):

  • Theys, Sarina (2018) 'The Soft Power of Non-Western Small States: The Cases of Bhutan and Qatar' (Newcastle University, UK)


Previous Funding Awards

Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship 

Sir Peter Ustinov Prejudice Scholarship

Economic and Social Research Council (1 3) Studentship

Council for British Research in the Levant Award

Ginsburg-Ingerman Scholarship


Teaching

Undergraduate Teaching

POL2012: Politics of the Middle East (80 students)

POL3060: Politics of Protest in the Middle East (60 students)


Publications