Affiliated with the Age and Generation research unit since 2020.
Research project: “Syrian parents in Berlin and Istanbul: gendered perspectives on strategies of childrearing, educational choices and intergenerational relationships”.

Magdalena is an anthropologist with a focus on migration and forced displacement. Her regional-ethnographic competence spans Southwest Asia and North Africa and Europe. She has conducted extensive periods of ethnographic fieldwork with Syrian refugees in Egypt and with migrants from diverse backgrounds in Germany. A key aspect of her academic trajectory has been the focus on gender. In her PhD dissertation, she delved into the predicaments of Syrian refugee men in Egypt. Her monograph “Masculinities and Displacement in the Middle East: Syrian refugees in Egypt” (I.B. Tauris, 2020), takes an intersectional approach with close attention to the ‘refugee’ as a classed and gendered person tracing Syrian men’s various strategies of constructing masculinities in exile. In her post-doctoral research project at the Max-Planck-Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, she analysed how migrants are affected by the legal and bureaucratic inscriptions they experience. In particular, she focused on migrant women’s mothering practices in times of legal precarity. In her habilitation project, she currently engages with childrearing practices and intergenerational transmission of knowledge among Syrian parents who live in protracted displacement in Turkey and Germany. Magdalena Suerbaum holds a Ph.D. in Gender Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London). She completed an M.A. at the University of Exeter in Middle East and Islamic Studies, and a B.A. at Philipps University Marburg in Islamic Studies.