The MESA Global Academy is an interdisciplinary initiative that sustains essential research collaborations and knowledge production among MENA-focused scholars from the Middle East and North Africa and their counterparts outside the region. By awarding competitive scholarships to displaced scholars from MENA currently in North America to attend meetings, workshops, and conferences, the project harnesses the strengths of MESA’s institutional and individual members to support the careers of individual researchers who study the Middle East and North Africa, but whose academic trajectory has been adversely affected by developments in their home countries.

Disarming the Camps—Palestinian Factions and the Limits of Lebanese Sovereignty
Flags of the Palestinian Fatah movement hang above an alley in the Burj al-Barajneh camp for Palestinian refugees, Beirut, Lebanon, February 2024. Anwar Amro/AFP via Getty Images
Palestinians in Lebanon

Disarming the Camps—Palestinian Factions and the Limits of Lebanese Sovereignty

Erling Lorentzen Sogge • 13 min read
Repair Amid Ongoing Ruination—Rebuilding Dahiyeh Once More
Lebanese civilians clean streets of the debris from buildings destroyed by Israel in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, December 2024. Houssam Shbaro/Anadolu via Getty Images

Repair Amid Ongoing Ruination—Rebuilding Dahiyeh Once More

Iman Ali • 11 min read
The Struggle for the City—Urban Recovery and Dispossession in Mosul and Damascus
Volunteers salvage and clean up the debris and destruction in the Bab al-Saray area of the old city of Mosul, Iraq, December 2017. Fed up with waiting for assistance from the Iraqi authorities, traders rebuilt their shattered businesses themselves. Ahmad Muwafaq/AFP via Getty Images

The Struggle for the City—Urban Recovery and Dispossession in Mosul and Damascus

Craig Larkin • 14 min read