Hanna Berg is a postdoctoral researcher in the SNF funded project Digital Humanitarianism: Governing Vulnerable Populations in an Age of Technological Innovation. She works across theoretical conversations on humanitarian interventions, practice, and governance in the Middle East region, and the anthropology of documents and bureaucracy.
Her PhD thesis examined the role of bureaucracy in (re)producing extended humanitarian emergencies and protracted displacement. Extending her theoretical understanding of bureaucracy as a condition for humanitarian knowledge and practice, Hanna's current research focuses the role of digital technologies in humanitarian governance.
Research Interests
- Migration
- Refugees
- Humanitarian governance
- Middle East
- Documents and Bureaucracy
Academic Work Experience
Thesis supervision for the MENA-track of the Graduate Institute’s executive master program, Development Policies and Practices, (2023-ongoing)
Teaching assistant 2020-2021, 2023-2024.
- Courses: Critical Refugee Studies (Spring 2023); Social Theory II: Critical Epistemologies (Spring 2023); Capstone Projects, Space, Mobility and Cities track (Spring 2021); Apocalypse Then and Now: Advanced Research Seminar in Understanding Systemic Collapse and Adaptation (Fall 2020); Environmental Security, (critical) Geopolitics and the Anthropocene (Fall 2020); Introduction to Global Health: Problems, Principles, Actors and Practices (Fall 2020); Education and Development: Tools and Techniques for International Cooperation (Spring 2020); Internationalization of Education and Development (Spring 2020); Workshop on Strategy Consulting in the Development Sector (Spring 2020)
- Academic support Development Policies and Practices executive master program, MENA-group.
- Supervision of theses
Fellowships, Grant and Awards
- Institute for Middle East Studies, George Washington University, Washington DC, Visiting Scholar (2024)
- COREC Research Commission of the University of Geneva Doc.Mobility Grant (2024)
RELEVANT PUBLICATIONS AND WORKS
- Berg. H. 2025. Waste of time is worse than death - ḍayā‘al-waqt ashadd min al-mawt, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Advanced Publications, 105-120. https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201X-11706983
- Berg, H. 2025. “Five-Star Humanitarianism? Navigating Gulf Aid in the Aftermath of the Syrian Refugee Crisis in Jordan.” Middle East Critique, Latest Articles, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2025.2453316
- Berg, H. 2024. “Refugees in the Making: Durable Marks of the Nansen Passport in Contemporary Humanitarian Governance.” In Andreetta. S, Borelli, L (Eds.), Governing Migration Through Paperwork. Berghahn Books. https://doi.org/10.3167/9781805396116
- Berg, H. November 2023. 'A critique of humanitarianism on the brink of genocide'. Allegra Lab.
- Berg, H. 2022. ليش صافنة؟": عن أنثروبولوجيا الأماكن المحكومة بالانتظا ر " ليش صافنة؟": عن أنثروبولوجياالأماكن المحكومة بالانتظا ر . Ultrasawt.
- Berg, H. 2021. Waiting for Third Country Resettlement: Exploring Temporal (Im) Mobility for Syrian Refugees in Jordan. In Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury (Ed.), Revisiting the 1951 Refugee Convention: Exploring Global Perspectives. GP-ORF series.
- Berg. H 2021, (December 19). Ruins of the humanitarian imaginary: A harmful or helpful theoretical framework in the field? EASA Anthropology of Humanitarianism Network.