Welcome أهلاً
My name is Heba Gowayed (click here for pronunciation) and I am a writer and Associate professor of Sociology at CUNY Hunter College & Graduate Center.
My research and writing centers the lives of people who migrate across borders and the unequal and often violent institutions they face. My award-winning book Refuge, published with Princeton University Press, takes readers into the lives of displaced Syrians who sought refuge in the United States, Canada, and Germany. Their experiences reveal that these destination countries are not saviors; they can deny newcomers’ potential by failing to recognize their abilities and invest in the tools they need to prosper.
I am currently working on my second book, The Cost of Borders where I argue that borders, rather than markers of sovereign territory, are comprised of a series of transactions that are always costly and often deadly. Moving across the world including frontiers like the Southwest border of the United States, the islands of the Greek Aegean, and the walls that contain Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, I detail the insatiable appetite for “security” that animates borders, and the smugglers fees, time, and physical risks that people incur to cross them. As borders expand, I argue, they erode the rights of all people within the nation that built them.
I am published in academic journals as well as public outlets including The Guardian, In these Times, Slate, Al Jazeera English, The New Humanitarian, and Teen Vogue, and have had my work and words featured in various outlets and podcasts including my favorite one Code Switch.
(Headshot by Andrea Kane)