On 9 October 2025, the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) is hosting this public lecture by Dr Jasmin Lilian Diab which will explore a trauma-informed approach to displacement research which centres refugee agency, ensures safe and dignified participation, and promotes co-created knowledge.
- Assistant professor
- Date
- Thursday 9 Oct 2025, 16:00 - 18:30
- Type
- Lecture
- Spoken Language
- English
- Room
- Aula A
- Location
- International Institute of Social Studies
- Ticket information
This lecture is open to the public. Registration is not required.
ISS and the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutions (EAID) are organizing this timely and crucial public lecture titled 'Trauma-informed Participatory Research in Displacement Studies' by Dr Jasmin Lilian Diab, the Director of the Institute for Migration Studies at the Lebanese American University.
This lecture will take place as part of the upcoming book “Global South Researchers in Development Studies: Positionality, Power, and Vulnerability” workshop. The forthcoming book, which is scheduled to be published by Routledge in the Rethinking Development Series in 2026, is organized and edited by ISS PhD researchers Ilaha Abasli and Ahmed El Assal, along with SOAS PhD researcher Yasmine Hafez.
This lecture will explore the integration of trauma-informed and participatory approaches in displacement research, emphasising their ethical inseparability and the need to implement them as a unified methodological framework. Focusing on displacement contexts like Lebanon, it highlights how traditional research practices have often been extractive, reinforcing power asymmetries and failing to prioritize the psychosocial well-being of refugee participants.
In contrast, a trauma-informed participatory approach centres refugee agency, ensures safe and dignified participation, and promotes co-created knowledge through methods such as refugee-led storytelling, participatory mapping, and collaborative analysis.
The lecture also addresses structural barriers - such as restrictive legal frameworks, donor-driven agendas, and institutional inertia - that constrain the adoption of these approaches. Ultimately, it argues that trauma-informed participatory research is not just a methodological innovation, but a necessary step toward research justice, community ownership, and transformative engagement in the study of forced migration.
Programme
16:00 - 16:15 Registration and welcome at ISS
16:15 - 16:20 Opening remarks
16:20 - 16:50 Public lecture
16:50 - 17:30 Open Discussion
17:30 - 18:30 Networking reception
The lecture will be moderated by Dr Zeynep Kasli, Assistant Professor in Migration and Development at ISS.
About the speaker
Dr Jasmin Lilian Diab (she/هي) is the Director of the Institute for Migration Studies at the Lebanese American University, where she also serves as an Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Migration Studies at the Department of Communication, Mobility and Identity. In 2025, her research was awarded the Lisa Gilad Prize from the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM), as well as the School of Arts and Sciences’ Distinguished Achievement Award. Dr. Diab is a Research Affiliate at the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University, a Global Fellow at Brown University’s Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies and a Senior Associate on Migration at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP).
PhD days
The lecture is preceded by ISS' PhD training days.
