About CTDC

CTDC is an intersectional multi- and interdisciplinary feminist consultancy, with a transnational social justice agenda. We strive for social justice through our innovative-ly transformative programmes and problem-solving solutions. We aim to build communities and movements, through an approach that is both academic and grassroots centred.

Our Story

CTDC was born out of the need to bridge the gap, reduce tensions and break binaries between academia and ‘the field’, theory and practice, north and south, and east and west. We believe that our interconnectivity and interdependence make it inevitable for us to create transnational networks of collaboration, if we were to seek intersectional social justice. Under the direction of our co-founders, CTDC has developed as a concept over time. We started with implementing funded projects. In 2017, we have decided that our strengths and hearts lie in collaborations rather than competition over resources. Since then, CTDC has provided an umbrella for grassroots groups to apply for their own funding and has sustained itself through collaborations on projects and consultancies. In our work, we rely on theories from multiple disciplines, including sociology, political sciences, sociolinguistics, psychology, social psychology, history, intellectual history, human geography, and indigenous and native studies and knowledges, to mention a few. Over the past years, we have provided trainings, lectures, workshops and webinars to over 2,500 individuals and dozens of organisations. Our work has travelled across different universities including LSE, SOAS, UCL, Birkbeck College, University of Edinburgh, the Open University, Coventry University, University of Zurich, American University of Beirut, American University of Iraq, to mention a few. The transnational nature of our work has reached wider audiences in Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Germany, Iraq, Jordan, Kurdistan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

Co-Founders and Co-Directors

Nour Abu-Assab

Dr Nour Abu-Assab is a feminist sociologist with a PhD (2012) from the University of Warwick. Nour is multi-disciplinary practitioner and academic with over fifteen years of experience working on issues related to social justice in the Global South. Her interests include gender, reproductive and sexual justice, diversity and inclusion, feminist governance, safeguarding and protection, education, movement building, environmental and intersectional feminist justice. Nour’s publications address issues around identities, sexualities, migration, post-colonialism, queer and decolonial methods and has a forthcoming book to be published by I.B. Tauris under the title of Ethnic Minorities and Nationalism in the Middle East: The Circassians of Jordan and the Kurds of Syria.


Nof Nasser-Eddin

Dr Nof Nasser-Eddin is a feminist sociologist with a PhD (2011) from the University of Warwick. Nof has over fifteen years of experience, which extends beyond the academia, as she has also worked with different international, national and local non-governmental organisations, across Arabic-speaking countries. Nof’s work and publications focus on issues related to social justice, including environmental feminism, intersectional feminism, sexuality, class, refugeehood, displacement, forced migration, decolonial and queer methods, class, masculinities, sexual practices and gender performances, and agency. Nof’s work also investigates the intersections of cultural, economic and political class with gender.

Fellows

Dr. Muna Dajani

Muna Dajani holds a PhD in Geography and Environment from the London School of Economics (LSE). Her research examines water struggles in agricultural communities and the linkages with politics of belonging and recognition. She has contributed to numerous studies on the hydropolitics of the Jordan and Yarmouk River Basins in addition to her interest in topics related to water, energy and climate justice. She is currently a Senior Research Fellow at Lancaster Environment Centre as part of Transformations to Groundwater Sustainability (T2GS) project which comparatively explores promising grassroots initiatives of groundwater governance around the world. She is also a Research Officer at the Middle East Centre at LSE, where she is leading on a collaboration project with Birzeit University on Mapping Memories of Resistance in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. She is a policy member at Al-Shabaka, The Palestinian Policy Network.


Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh

Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh is Professor of Migration and Refugee Studies and Co-Director of the Migration Research Unit at University College London (UCL), where she is also the Coordinator of the UCL-wide Refuge in a Moving World interdisciplinary research network. She is currently the Principal Investigator of a number of major research projects, including 'Local Community Experiences of and Responses to Displacement' (funded by the AHRC-ESRC, www.refugeehosts.org) and 'Southern Responses to Displacement from Syria: Views from Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey' (funded by the European Research Council, www.southernresponses.org).


Aydan Greatrick

Aydan Greatrick has four years of experience working in the field of international development and humanitarian research and advocacy. Aydan’s core strengths relate to the delivery of in-depth research and analysis combined with effective public engagement and communication leading to demonstrable impact on policy and practice. His expertise relate to forced migration, displacement, gender, sexuality, and local responses to refugees. Aydan is currently his PhD inUniversity College London, Centre for Multidisciplinary and Intercultural Inquiry. Thesis Title: Identities in Conflict: Humanitarian Responses to and Experiences of Queer Refugees in Lebanon and Germany.


Ella Scheepers

Ella Scheepers is a facilitator and organisational development consultant based in South Africa with over 9 years experience supporting social justice organisations to create reflexive and vibrant organisations. With her deep commitment to social justice and feminist practice, breadth of experience navigating different parts of the social change field, and knowledge of organisational change dynamics, Ella grounds her work in Love. Her PhD is focusing on discovering and embracing the possibilities and obstacles that accompany building collaborations and inclusive environments inside organisations.


Lewis Turner

Lewis Turner is a Lecturer in International Politics of Gender at Newcastle University, UK. He is a political ethnographer of humanitarianism in ‘the Middle East,’ and his work investigates questions of gender (especially men and masculinities), encampment, labour market integration, and race and racism in humanitarianism. His research has appeared in journals including International Feminist Journal of Politics, Middle East Critique, and Review of International Studies, and has received prizes from professional associations including the British International Studies Association and the Political Studies Association. He previously worked at the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute at the University of Freiburg, and holds a PhD in Politics and International Relations from SOAS University of London.

CTDC IN NUMBERS

3000

People we have trained and mentored.

70

Entities we have worked with.

30

Countries we have worked in.