Zena is a PhD student in Human Geography. Her research examines the geographical imaginaries of mapping in Palestine-Israel. It explores how Palestinians have been excluded from maps of their own land from the British Mandate to today and the decolonial potential of counter-mapping. By using archival and ethnographic research, her work seeks to address current gaps in knowledge at the intersection of critical cartography, colonialism and decolonisation in Palestine-Israel.
Zena is interested in the colonial cartography of Palestine-Israel beyond academia and has examined it through policy research, film and poetry. She received her bachelor’s degree from Warwick University and was awarded the Kennedy Scholarship to complete her Masters in Middle East Studies at Harvard University.
