PhD
PhD Thesis Title: ‘Queer’ Debt: A Study of Relational Finance in Lebanon (working title)
PhD Supervisor: Kristen Mcneill
Second Reader: Grégoire Mallard
Hossein Cheaito’s doctoral research examines how queer communities in Beirut make, owe, and redistribute debts in ways that both expose and subvert the moral logics of neoliberal capitalism. Centered on the concept of queer debt, the project asks how borrowing, lending, and informal exchange, of cash, care, time, and favors, become tools for sustaining life and solidarity under conditions of precarity and exclusion.
Cheaito traces how queer circuits of credit and obligation blur the line between economy and intimacy: how loans turn into gifts, how debts strain or deepen relationships, and how queer subjects earmark money differently across lovers, kin, and chosen family. Through this lens, the project reveals finance not as a distant system but as a relational terrain.
Profile
Hossein Cheaito is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. Hossein holds an MSc in Development Economics from the University of Sussex and a BA in Economics from the American University of Beirut. He is an alumnus of the Joint UK Chevening-Said Foundation scholarship program. He is also part of the International Association for Feminist Economics and a member of its MENA committee.
Prior to coming to Geneva, Hossein was also a nonresident fellow in Development Economics at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP), a Washington-based policy think tank. In this role, he conducted in-depth research on economic development and crisis responses in the MENA region, producing analyses on fiscal policy, debt justice, austerity, social protection, and (queer) political economy. At The Policy Initiative, a Beirut-based think tank, Hossein also worked as a Development Economist across the fields of local public finance, economic development, and labor economics, where he helped construct Lebanon’s first local economic growth diagnostics framework. He additionally co-led a project on Lebanon’s gig economy with the University of Oxford’s Internet Institute under the Fairwork project.
As a lead researcher with Helem, the MENA region’s first LGBTQ+ organization, Hossein conducted Lebanon’s first comprehensive study on the socio-economic impact of LGBTQ+ discrimination in Lebanon. As a consultant, Hossein has also critically engaged with International Monetary Fund (IMF) policies in Lebanon and the wider MENA region. Representing Lebanon at the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Washington DC, he spoke on (and moderated) panels addressing the socio-economic impacts of structural adjustment programs, analyzing the distributional effects of those and advocating for feminist economic alternatives.
He has also participated in numerous high-profile panels and workshops on topics including the IMF and social welfare, Queer Economies in the global south, LGBTQ+ socio-economic inequality, economic recovery, political economy, engaging with policymakers, academics, and civil society leaders regionally and globally. His scholarly and policy work has been featured in various academic and non-academic platforms, with forthcoming work in Feminist Economics, Palgrave, and European Journal of Gender and Politics, among others. Hossein’s insights have also been sought by media outlets including BBC, Al Jazeera, DW News, The New Arab, Reuters, The World podcast, L'Orient-Le Jour, Liberation, among others.
Research Interests
- Relational economic sociology,
- Neoliberalism
- Queer marxism
- Feminist political economy
- Queer political economy, debt, finance
Selected publications and Works
- Cheaito, H (2022) “Thinking Queerly about Lebanon’s Mega-Crises” https://timep.org/2022/06/30/thinking-queerly-about-lebanons-mega-crises/
- Cheaito, H et (2022). “The IMF in MENA: Flawed Approaches, New Challenges.” https://timep.org/2023/04/14/the-imf-in-mena-flawed-approaches-new-challenges/
- Cheaito, H (2022). “Lebanon’s $3 Billion IMF Deal and the Art of Illusory Reform.” https://timep.org/2022/10/12/lebanons-3-billion-imf-deal-and-the-art-of-illusory-reform/
- Cheaito, H (2022). “Unleashing Queer Economic Liberation in Lebanon.” https://al-rawiya.com/unleashing-queer-economic-liberation-in-lebanon/
- Cheaito, H et al. (2022). “Tourism and remittances are not a panacea for Lebanon's financial woes.” https://www.thepolicyinitiative.org/article/details/177/tourism-and-rem…- lebanons-financial-woes
- Cheaito, H (2023). “Local governance in Lebanon: The Great Mirage” https://timep.org/2023/05/18/local-governance-in-lebanon-the-great-mirage/
- Cheaito, H (2023) “Capital, power, and sexuality in Lebanon: Building an economic case for LGBTQ+ inclusion” Helem Lebanon
- Cheaito, H (2023) “The IMF’s lazy economics won’t save MENA” Arab Watch Coalition.
- Cheaito, H., & Khneisser, M. (2024). “Queering Debt: Towards A Queer Political Economy of Lebanon’s Financial Collapse.” In M. V. Lee Badgett, J. Heintz, & S. P. Shah (Guest Eds.), LGBTQ+ Special Issue in Feminist Economics. (forthcoming)
- Cheaito, H., & Delatolla, A. (2025). Lebanon’s global LGBTIQ+ engagements: Between representation and neoliberalism. European Journal of Politics and Gender, forthcoming.
- Cheaito, H., & Al Daoud, G. (2025) Global Capital and the Governance of Queer Life in Jordan and Lebanon. Palgrave, forthcoming.