Ali Reda

Ali is a graduate student at Cambridge University’s Social Anthropology department. He has worked on LGBT activism and identity in the Levant. He is interested in historical accounts of sexuality in the Middle East, labor struggles, and environmentalism. His current project looks at tracing political struggles through reference to ecological cycles, tracing the history and contemporary politics of Tyr in South Lebanon through attention to the provision of oil, water, and labor. His previous research focused on three elements of LGBT struggle in Beirut: identity formation, precarious socioeconomic status, and activism. His MA thesis We Live in Shadows explores how queer individuals come to identify as gay, lesbian, or trans; it explores the socioeconomic foundations and contingency of homophobia and its reproduction in Lebanon. Lastly, it asks how activists have responded to state to this reality and to what extent they have been successful. Ali is currently focusing on issues related to environmentalism and climate change. Particularly, he is interested in the politics of dependency on fossil fuel, the ecology of trade economies, and activist circles that seek to undermine societal dependence on harmful practices.