Shatha Alowda

Shatha Alowda is a PhD researcher at the SOAS University of London, department of Cultural, Literary, and Postcolonial Studies. Her doctoral project adopts a micro-sociological and encounter-based approach, conceptualising solidarity spaces as sites of interaction across difference. 

Rather than treating solidarity as an inherently unified practice, her work critically explores its internal tensions, hierarchies, and limits emerging within solidarity encounters, investigates how questions of representation, legitimacy, and voice are shaped within such encounters, and how Palestinians interpret, negotiate, or resist these dynamics. Shatha holds two master’s degrees; one in Gender and Development Studies and another in Global Migration and Social Justice Studies. 

Her academic background informs her interdisciplinary approach, combining insights from feminist theory, postcolonial and decolonial studies, and social movement research. Alongside her academic work, Shatha has extensive professional experience in research and programme coordination across the Middle East. She has led and contributed to community-based initiatives focused on human rights, youth engagement, gender justice, and advocacy. This combination of academic and field-based experience informs her commitment to producing research that is grounded in lived realities.

• Transnational solidarity and decolonial practice
• Forced displacement and Refugee Studies
• Knowledge, power, and epistemic justice
• Decolonial and Feminist epistemologies
• Everyday encounters and micro-sociological analysis