Anwar Jaber, BEng, MPhil, PhD (Cantab), is an interdisciplinary researcher and urban scholar interested in the cultural and socio-political aspects of architecture and urbanism. Her interdisciplinary research explores the meaning and change of the urban environment in cities facing extreme conditions, such as violent conflicts. She completed her MPhil in Architecture and Urban Studies (2014) and PhD in Architecture (2020) at the University of Cambridge in England, where she worked under the supervision of Professor Wendy Pullan at the Centre for Urban Conflicts Research. Her PhD thesis is entitled ‘The Paradox of Ramallah: An Investigation into Palestine’s Political and National Architecture and Urban Topography Since 1995’. It spatially investigates the emerging political and national buildings in the city of Ramallah in Palestine, built under the Palestinian state-building project. The thesis offeres a new interpretation of the physical transformation of the city into a Palestinian political centre within the Palestinian struggle to establish a state, and under the larger Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Anwar brings an international academic and professional experience from the Middle East and Europe. Before joining Cambridge, she obtained her bachelor degree in Architectural Engineering from Birzeit University in Palestine (2013). She also practiced as a licensed architect and urban planner in a Jerusalem-based NGO, where she developed urban plans for marginalized Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem in collaboration with the local community. At the University of Cambridge, Anwar taught two RIBA-certified undergraduate courses on Divided cities and Islamic Architecture. She also co-edited Scroope 25 (the Cambridge Architecture Journal) and organized several conferences, including the one entitled ‘Spatial Articulations of Collective Identities in the Context of Middle Eastern Cities’, for which she received a full funding award from the Graduate School of Arts and Humanities. She was also awarded the two prestigious Cambridge Trust and Said-Churchill Scholarships for her studies. In addition, she serves as an editor for the Arab Urbanism Magazine in both Arabic and English.
Her key research interests include:
- The interplay between politics, nationalism and architecture
- Cities, conflict and everyday life
- Urban memory and war
- Islamic architecture
- History and theory of architecture and urbanism
- Urbanism in the Middle East and North Africa, especially in Palestine/Israel