Dr Rumana Hashem

Research Associate, Centre for Migration, Refugees and Belonging
University of East London
Pronouns: she/her

Dr Rumana Hashem is a sociologist and visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Migration, Refugees and Belonging (CMRB). She specialises in the sociology of gender, conflict and migration, and is a course tutor on the MRes Social Justice at the University of East London.

Her work in migration focuses on ethics, methodologies and accessibility in archiving displacement and heritage. She also researches displacement justice, belonging, migrant trajectories, and how these intersect with gender and racial injustice.

Rumana is the lead researcher for Democratic Access or Privileged Exclusion and a co-investigator of the Living Refugee Archive. Her PhD, completed at UEL in 2014, explored how state assimilation and the destruction of Aboriginal heritage contributed to gendered violence in conflict in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.

Contact information

  • Email: r.hashem@uel.ac.uk
  • Address: University of East London, 4–6 University Way, Cyprus, London E16 2RD


Research interests

  • Gender, conflict and migration
  • Displacement justice
  • Archiving displacement and heritage
  • Ethics, access and belonging
  • Gender and racial injustice
  • Migrant trajectories and belonging


Professional activities

  • Executive Committee Member, International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM)
  • Programme Affairs and Innovation Officer, IASFM
  • Co-editor of Displaced Voices
  • Advisor to the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-funded project Archives of Solidarity
  • Co-ordinator, Working Group for History of Forced Migration and Refugees
  • Co-founder of the Living Refugee Archive


Projects and external profiles


Podcast

Listen to Dr Hashem discuss ethics, access and belonging in archiving with the Refugee Archive: Listen to the podcast on YouTube.


Recent publications

  • Hashem, R. (2025). Moving Memories of the Displaced: Oral Testimonies of Participants from London. Displaced Voices: A Journal of Migration, Archives and Cultural Heritage, Volume 4.
  • Hashem, R. (2025). The Living Refugee Archive Project: Participatory Approaches to Archiving the Lived Experience of Migration. In T. Stefanac (Ed.), Archival Traces of Migration Handbook, pp. 309–328. Zagreb: Nakladnik, ICARUS HRVATSKA – Međunarodni centar za arhivska istraživanja. ISBN 978-953-49472-8-9.
  • Hashem, R. (2023). Archiving Displacement and Identities: Recording Struggles of the Displaced Re/making Home in Britain. In Y. Shamma, S. Ilcan, V. Squire and H. Underhill (Eds.), Migration, Culture and Identity: Making Home Away, pp. 55–78. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.