I am a political scientist and an associate professor in the Peace and Justice Studies program.

I study how marginalized communities, specifically Palestinian refugees, develop cooperative strategies to solve collective dilemmas in suboptimal conditions. In the midst of dwindling humanitarian aid and host state support, Palestinian refugees strategically meld kinship networks and communal norms with digital platforms to motivate reciprocity, a cooperative action marked by the mutual exchange of favors and services, among their transnational diaspora community. Using a combination of in depth interviews, surveys, and digital data scraping, I find that reciprocity among networked refugees generates economic remittances that fund valuable public goods and services for the camp community.

My first book,Protection Amid Chaos: The Creation of Property Rights in Palestinian Refugee Camps,was published by Columbia University Press in 2016. My second book,Networked Refugees: Palestinian Reciprocity and Remittances in the Digital Age,will be published by the University of California Press in Fall 2021. Visitwww.nadyahajj.orgfor more links to my research.

I teach classes in conflict transformation, politics of the Middle East and North Africa, qualitative methods, and Palestinian-Israeli peace prospects.