Alex Mahoudeau

- Social movements

- Political geography

- Politics, society, and space

- Urban sociology

- Refugee studies

- Palestinians in Lebanon

- Qualitative methodology

Alex Mahoudeau’s research interests are mostly towards the connections between social space and political engagement, especially in situations of enclosure. He has previously worked on the applicability of the notion of “space of exception” to the Palestinian refugee camps of Lebanon, and on the forms of engagement surrounding residential enclosure in the south of France. His current research is focusing on the interrelation between human geography and social movement studies in the Palestinian refugee camps of Lebanon. He mostly investigates how the anchoring of the refugee community, its identity and its memory in the space of the camps is used by certain actors in order to mobilise political contention. Alex mostly uses qualitative methods of investigation, notably ethnographic tools and in-depth interviews. He also has developed an interest in social movement theory.

Alex started his PhD in Durham University in October 2013 and transferred at KCL in 2015, after studying politics and social sciences from 2008 to 2013 in Aix-en-Provence Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Political Institute) in France, where he received a Master 2 in research in political science, with a focus in compared politics. In that period he also spent a year as an exchange student in Saint Joseph University, in Beirut.