Diana AllanView profile
Associate Professor
Diana Allan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at McGill University, affiliated with the Institute for the Study of International Development (ISID) and holding the Canada Research Chair in the Anthropology of Living Archives. She holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University (2008). Her work focuses on Palestinian refugee experiences in Lebanon, particularly through the Nakba Archive and her ethnographic films. Affiliations: McGill University Anthropology, ISID, Leadership for the Ecozoic Key roles: Co-lead of the Critical Media Lab, filmmaker, and activist scholar Research interests center on camp ecologies, cultural memory, and colonial histories. She explores how material environments shape refugee life through projects like Past Continuous (camp archives) and Partition (film on colonial archives). Themes: Exile, displacement, sensory memory, transnational solidarity Recent publications include Voices of the Nakba (2021) and Refugees of the Revolution (2014), award-winning works analyzing Palestinian narratives. Her films Still Life and So Dear, So Lovely critically examine camp life and memory. Awards: English PEN Award, Palestine Book Award, AAA Middle East Section Prize Current projects investigate Palestinian coastal life, urban food systems in Lebanon, and digital platforms for refugee histories. She collaborates with artists, activists, and communities to create accessible pedagogical tools about displacement.









