Dr Pietro Stefanini
Job Title
Tutor in Politics and International Relations

Research interests
Background
I hold a PhD in Politics from the University of Edinburgh, where I have also been teaching several courses within the School of Social and Political Science, and the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures. In September 2025, I will begin a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh's Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities. I'm currently working on a book manuscript based on my doctoral research, which deploys archival and ethnographic methods to trace a genealogy of the relationship between humanitarianism and settler colonialism from the period of British imperial rule in Palestine, through the 1948 and 1967 wars, to the contemporary conjuncture. Some of my work has been published in Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Participation and Conflict, and the American University in Cairo Press. Since 2022, I have served as research assistant to the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. Previously I worked for five years as a researcher at a London-based organisation dedicated to defend refugee rights. Before moving to the UK to begin my studies, I grew up between Bologna, Damascus and Occupied Jerusalem.
Education
PhD Politics, University of Edinburgh (2020-2025)
MSc Politics of Conflicts, Rights and Justice, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, (2014-2015)
BA Politics and International Relations, Kingston University London, (2010-2013)
Funding
2020-2023 Politics and International Relations PhD Scholarship, University of Edinburgh
Teaching Experience
Tutor – Politics and International Relations 1B: The Global Dimension, University of Edinburgh (2025)
Tutor – Modern Middle Eastern History B, University of Edinburgh (2025)
Tutor – Politics of the Middle East, University of Edinburgh (2023 and 2024)
Tutor – International Relations, University of Dundee (2024)
Tutor – International Development, Aid and Humanitarianism, University of Edinburgh (2023/2024)
Tutor – International Cooperation in Europe and Beyond, University of Edinburgh (2021/2022)
Publications
2025 'Gaza foundation is a humanitarian face to mask Israel's genocide', Middle East Eye.
2024 ‘Settler-Humanitarianism: Dispossession, “Humanitarian Transfer”, and the 1948 Nakba’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 53, (1): 136-162.
2023 'Outlawing BDS and the Repression of Solidarity with Palestine', The Legal Agenda.
2023 'Israeli Judicial Reforms: Bursting the Bubble of a Colonial Court System', The Legal Agenda.
2023 'Israel's new settler governor', Middle East Monitor.
2023 'Problematizing Law, Rights and Childhood in Israel/Palestine by Hedi Viterbo, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021', Critical Studies on Terrorism.
2022 'Refugee crisis: How one girl's death personifies Europe's guilt in Mediterranean tragedy', Middle East Eye.
2021 'Incendiary Kites and Balloons: Anti-colonial Resistance in Palestine's Great March of Return', Participation and Conflict, 14(2): 663-680.
2021 'Normalizing the Siege: The Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism (GRM)' in Michael Sorkin and Deen Sharp eds., Open Gaza: Architectures of Hope, Cairo: American University in Cairo Press.
2020 'Come normalizzare l’assedio: il Meccanismo per la Ricostruzione di Gaza', Historia Magistra. Rivista di storia critica, n. 34, 21-39 [Italian].
2020 UNRWA at 70: Palestinian Refugees in Context, London: AJCS and PRC. [Arabic translation: https://studies.aljazeera.net/en/publications/unrwa-70-palestinian-refu…;
2018 'Normalizing the Siege: The "Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism" and the Contradictions of Humanitarianism and Reconstruction' The Politics of Post-Conflict Reconstruction, POMEPS Studies, 30.
2018 'Voices of Return: Documenting Israel's Repression of the Great March of Return', London: Palestinian Return Centre.
2018 (with Maya Hammad) 'Syria’s Palestinian Refugees: An Account of Violence, Precarious Existence and Uncertain Futures', London: Palestinian Return Centre
Invited lectures and presentations
2024 Summer School on Palestine Refugees, The Middle East Foundation, Africa Foundation and IST Academy, Turkey.
2024 History of Modern Palestine Seminar, University of Dundee.
2022 Critical Palestinian Studies Lecture Series, Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Bologna.
2021 Revolutions and Counter-Revolutions in the MENA Region, Monthly Seminar on Social Movements and Political Action, University Institute of Lisbon.
2021 Postcolonial dimensions in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict seminar, Postcolonialism and International Relations course, Scuola Normale Superiore Florence.
2021 Webinar organised by the Office of Market Auken MEP, What is life like for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon?