Rania Dalloul

Rania is a Palestinian-Lebanese urbanist born and raised in the fascinating country of Kuwait. She moved to New York City in 2013 where she currently works as the director of communication and fundraising at UHAB, a local nonprofit that advocates for and creates community-controlled affordable housing. Her background is in urban research and practice, particularly around education, poverty, and housing among Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. She holds a BA in Political Science and Philosophy from Concordia University in Montréal, and her MA in Theories of Urban Practice from Parsons School of Design Strategies at the New School in New York. Her most cherished work to date is a graphic novel she produced in collaboration with her sister Nada, retracing the oral histories of “Ahmadi,” a midcentury postcolonial company town in Kuwait.

Throughout her academic and professional work, Rania is committed to exploring issues of displacement, colonialism, and social geographies of refugees and immigrants. Her work aims to learn from the experiences of internally displaced communities from the individuals themselves—how they practice resilience, maintain community, preserve culture, and build movements of resistance wherever they are.