Home page
ع

Amira Ahmed

  • Position: Assistant Professor and Associate Researcher
  • Department: Department of Sociology, Egyptology and Anthropology
Brief Biography

Amira Ahmed is both a scholar and practitioner with a long experience in the area of diaspora engagement, migration, refugees, paid domestic work and human trafficking. Both her master's and PhD degrees focus on the intersectionality of gender, class, and ethnicity within local and global dynamics. In contrast, her PhD dissertation examined the vulnerabilities of migrant women domestic workers in Egypt (Ahmed, 2010). Ahmed also worked with leading humanitarian/development organizations such as UN-IOM in Jordan and Egypt and IFRC in Switzerland. Recent publication: co-author of Skills for Science Systems in Africa: The Case of Brain Drain.

In an interdisciplinary approach, her current research focuses on examining cultural heritage-making practices and sites along migration routes across national and continental boundaries from Africa to Europe, focusing on the political agency and relationalities of migrants/refugees and their advocates. Hosted by SEA Department, Ahmed is currently performing a research associate position and leading the research project Traces of mobility, violence and solidarity: Reconceptualizing cultural heritage through the lens of migration. TRACES is multi-site collaborative research represented by the American University in Cairo, Mila University/Italy, London Gold-Smith University, and Jendouba University/Tunisia.

Research Interest
  • Migration/refugees and diaspora engagements
  • Gender, sexuality and feminism
  • Human trafficking
  • Paid domestic work
  • PhD, University of East London                                                                      
  • MA, The American University in Cairo
  • BSc, Ain Shams University 
  • Ahmed, Amira and Sheikheldin Gussai. 2021. Challenges and Opportunities of Knowledge Wealth in Science Systems in Africa: The Role of Highly Skilled African Migrants; In Building science systems in Africa: challenges and opportunities for science councils. SGCI Theme 3 – Book concept note – V5-28Aug19.
  • Ahmed, Amira. 2021. Don’t Call Me “awrah,” for I am the “thawrah”: Why Sudan’s December 2018 Revolution was Named Women’s Revolution Feminist Dissent. No. 5 (2020): Secular States, Fundamentalist Politics
  • Ahmed, Amira. 2019. Freedom, Peace and Justice Chanted in Sudan: Europe’s Sudan Migration Partnership in the Context of the December 2018 Revolution, Pp 115-119; In IOM Publican High-Level Expert Meeting: Setting Up a Road Map for Mixed Migration in West and North Africa. 16th to 18th June 2019, Aswan-Egypt.
  • Ahmed, Amira. 2019. Sudan and South Sudan Migration to Europe, in Escaping the Escape: Towards Solutions for the Migrant Crisis, to be published by Bertelsmann Stiftung, Germany, first quarter 2017.
  • Ahmed, Amira. 2010. I need work!: The Multiple Roles of the Church, Ranking and Religious Piety Among Domestic Workers in Egypt. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology. Vol. 11, Nos. 3_4, September-December 2010, pp. 361-377.

Under Publication

  • Ahmed, Amira. Consumable Sexualities: Forced Migration, Marriage, and Human Trafficking in the Middle East.
  • Ahmed, Amira and Alassal, Munzoul. Khartoum’s Cairo Connection: Dimensions of the Sudanese diaspora in Egypt, A study on Sudan Diaspora in Egypt. Rift Valley Institute. Expected December 2022.