• LGBTIQ+ inclusion
• Humanitarian governance
• Knowledge production
• Lebanon
• Institutional legibility
• Intersectionality
• Localisation

Working Title: Rendering Lives Actionable. Knowledge Production within LGBTIQ+ Humanitarian Governance in Lebanon

This doctoral project examines how LGBTIQ+ vulnerabilities are produced, translated, and operationalised within donor-driven humanitarian systems in Lebanon. Rather than approaching exclusion primarily as a problem of failed policy implementation, the project analyses how humanitarian categories themselves shape which experiences become recognised as humanitarian vulnerabilities and rendered institutionally visible, recognisable, and actionable.

Focusing on Lebanon as a context of protracted crisis, displacement, and economic collapse, the project examines how donor-driven humanitarian governance, organisational knowledge production, and aid delivery practices mutually shape the institutional visibility of marginalisation within humanitarian systems. Particular attention is paid to the role of local LGBTIQ+ organisations, which provide psychosocial, legal, medical, and humanitarian support while also producing knowledge about experiences of marginalisation and protection needs through NGO-led research, needs assessments, and reporting.

Drawing on critical humanitarian studies, organisational sociology, and queer theory, the project conceptualises vulnerability not as a pre-existing condition, but as something continuously produced, negotiated, and stabilised through interactions between donor priorities, organisational practices, and institutional processes of categorisation and recognition.

Methodologically, the project combines qualitative interviews, document analysis, and the tracing of reporting and categorisation processes across humanitarian and organisational settings. It pays particular attention to how intersectional forms of marginalisation become unevenly visible within donor-driven aid structures, and how these processes shape both humanitarian interventions and future funding priorities.

By analysing how humanitarian systems actively shape which experiences of marginalisation become institutionally recognisable and actionable, the project contributes to debates on humanitarian governance, institutional knowledge production, localisation, and the politics of visibility and institutional legibility.

• Erdem, Z. P., C. Maydaa, H. Berchtold, C. Wilmot and H. Myrttinen (2024): “Violence Against Refugee Women of Diverse SOGIESC in Lebanon and Türkiye”. MOSAIC MENA Report (SVRI Research Grant).
• Erdem, Z. P., C. Maydaa, H. Myrttinen and H. Berchtold (2024): “Doing NGO Research with Diverse SOGIESC Refugees in Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey: a Conversation”, in: Hagen, J. J., S. Ritholtz and A. Delatolla (eds.), Queer Conflict Research: New Approaches to the Study of Political Violence. Bristol: Bristol University Press. 
• Berchtold, H., C. Chaya, C. Maydaa, E. Kofman, E. Tuncer and R. Lazzarino (2022): “Gendered Dynamics of International Labour Migration: Migrant Women in Greater Beirut, Lebanon”. UKRI GCRF Gender, Justice & Security Hub Report.
• Hartmann, C., H. Roxin, M. R. Atal, H. Berchtold, M. Kellogg, M. Weeger und C. Zürcher (2023): “Ressortgemeinsame strategische Evaluierung des zivilen Engagements der Bundesregierung in Afghanistan. Ressortspezifischer Bericht zum Engagement des BMZ in Afghanistan”. Bonn: Deutsches Evaluierungsinstitut der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit (DEval).