Staff Profile

Background

I am interested in issues relating to mobility, security and space in Israel-Palestine. 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) 

Past, current and future projects

My doctoral research was co-funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Sir Peter Ustinov Prejudice Fund and examined state attitudes towards Palestinian Christians in Israel. It focused on police responses to instances of intra-communal violence in Nazareth and other mixed Arab villages in the Galilee. This work was published with Mediterannean Politics (2010) and resulted in my first book with Routledge (2011). It also paved the way for a two year Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship focusing on urban policing and the policing of Palestinian protest in Israel. The results of this were published with International Political Sociology (2016), Security Dialogue (2016) and Political Geography (2017).

My current research examines the relationship between mobility, security and space in Palestine. 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 my 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 2024), as well as ongoing work on Al Quds University, Jerusalem and the Islamic University of Gaza. 

Alongside my current research, I remain committed to ethnographic research methods and methodologies as a means of centering minorities, peripheral groups and social-political margins in mainstream scholarship.  

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-present) '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)

Funding

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

Undergraduate Teaching

POL2012: Politics of the Middle East

POL3060: Politics of Protest in the Middle East

• Articles

  • McGahern U. Higher Education under Siege: Attacking Spaces of Hope in Palestine. Geopolitics 2025, 30(2), 830-858.
  • McGahern U, Iriqat D, Al-Haj A. Building a border-city university in occupied Palestine: Developing a cross-border "resistance economy" in practice. Political Geography 2024, 108, 103030.
  • McGahern U. Cross-border mobilities: mobility capital and the capital accumulation strategies of Palestinian citizens of Israel. Mobilities 2023, 18(6), 903-919.
  • McGahern U. Making Space on the Run: Exercising the Right to Move in Jerusalem. Mobilities 2019, 14(6), 890-905.
  • McGahern U. Protesting at the crossroads: Framing ‘in-between places’ in spatial analyses of contention. Political Geography 2017, 59, 92-102.
  • McGahern U. 'They go to get a gun': Hidden histories of violence and the politics of rumour in Israel. Security Dialogue 2016, 47(6), 481-497.
  • McGahern U. Spatial Regimes of Power: Combined Municipal Policing in the Arab City of Nazareth. International Political Sociology 2016, 10(3), 206-222.
  • McGahern U. The limits of dissent: Palestinian media in a Jewish ethnocracy. Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research 2011, 4(1), 79-93.
  • McGahern U. Multicultural norms and strategies: Minority policy in an ethnocratic state. Mediterranean Politics 2010, 15(3), 415-433.

• Authored Book

  • McGahern U. Palestinian Christians in Israel: State attitudes towards non-Muslims in a Jewish State. Oxon: Routledge, 2011.

• Book Chapter

  • McGahern U. Cross-Border Student Mobilities: Mobility Capital and the Pursuit of Mobility Justice among Palestinian Citizens of Israel. In: Courtois, A. Marginson, S. & Montgomery, C. & Sidhu, R, ed. The Future of Cross-Border Academic Mobilities. Bloomsbury Press, 2024. In Press.

• Online Publications

  • McGahern U. I'm a Running Researcher. Birmingham: Simon Cook, 2022. Available at: https://jographies.wordpress.com/2022/01/26/im-a-running-researcher-una-mcgahern/.
  • McGahern U. Contending Nakba-denial: The role of oral and visual testimonies. E-International Relations, 2014. Available at: https://www.e-ir.info/2014/08/28/contending-nakba-denial-the-role-of-oral-and-visual-testimonies/#google_vignette.
  • McGahern U. The Loaded Discourse of Gun Control in Israel. E-International Relations, 2013. Available at: https://www.e-ir.info/2013/08/13/the-loaded-discourse-of-gun-control-in-israel/.

• Review

  • McGahern U. The Struggle to be Seen and Heard in Israel–Palestine. Geopolitics 2020, 25(1), 267-271.