Mai Abu Moghli

Mai Abu Moghli is senior researcher and Co-Principle Investigator in the Education in Emergencies Program at the Centre for Lebanese Studies. She received a PhD in human rights education from UCL’s Institute of Education and an MA in human rights from the University of Essex. Her work focuses on critical approaches to human rights education, teacher professional development, refugee education, and decolonizing research and higher education. She has worked in a number of academic institutions in the UK, Lebanon, and Palestine, and has published on the legal status of Syrian Palestinian refugees, Palestinian teachers’ activism, the professional development of teachers in the context of mass displacement, and on decolonial research ethics and methods.

Commentary Refugees

The Mobilizing Power of Palestinians in Lebanon

March 7, 2022

For decades, Lebanese and Palestinian leadership, as well as the international aid community, have been complicit in Palestinian refugees’ destitution in Lebanon’s camps. However, the tide is shifting. Al-Shabaka’s policy analyst, Mai Abu Moghli, examines how Palestinians in Lebanon have been increasingly staking claims to their rights through collective mobilization, charting a new and revolutionary path for themselves in the country.

Focus Refugees

Focus On: Palestinian Refugees

May 13, 2017

This collection of some of the most compelling pieces Al-Shabaka has published contextualizes and discusses the unique difficulties of Palestinian refugees displaced across the Middle East – from becoming refugees a second or third time due to the ongoing Syrian civil war to over-researching camps “famous” for tragedy while under-researching other refugee situations and exile communities.

Policy Brief Refugees

Palestinian Refugees From Syria: Stranded on the Margins of Law

October 19, 2015

Al-Shabaka policy analysts Mai Abu Moghli, Nael Bitarie, and Nell Gabiam analyze the effects of the war in Syria on Palestinian refugees through a succinct, country-by-country analysis of the legal and social obstacles they face. They examine the discriminatory legal framework that is being applied to the Palestinian refugees from Syria by Arab countries as well as by the international community, and underscore that the Israeli government’s denial of the right of return of Palestinian refugees – in violation of international law - is a major factor in the current vulnerability of the Palestinians of Syria.