Fayad, Joe

Joe Fayad was a research intern at UNU-CRIS. He holds a Bachelor of Public Health and Development Sciences from the University of Balamand in Beirut, and a Master of Social and Cultural Anthropology from KU Leuven. For his master’s thesis, Joe explored the notions of crisis, trauma, grief, hope, despair, imagination, mobility and movement in the context of a chronically in-crisis Beirut, as well as the ways in which locals and visitors alike interact with the city while attempting to traverse its inherent social, economic and political challenges. He has completed the last semester of his second graduate degree, a Master of Bioethics, also at KU Leuven, with his thesis revolving around activism and engagement in medical practice, zoning in on the role of bioethicists in the age of healthcare and humanitarian crisis.

While still living in Lebanon, his country of birth, Joe worked as a health promoter at a medical center targeting underprivileged communities in Beirut. He was also a research assistant at the American University of Beirut Medical Center, taking on projects and studies focusing on the intersectional nature of Healthcare and Culture. Before enrolling in his current Master’s degree, Joe worked as a cultural mediator and health promoter with Médecins Sans Frontières in their Mental Health for Migration project in Brussels, collaborating with a multi-disciplinary team to provide mental health support, as well as general health services and social and legal assistance to individuals from different ethnicities, genders, ages and backgrounds seeking asylum in Belgium.

At UNU-CRIS, Joe interned under the supervision of Marlies Casier, Ellen Desmet, Maud Martens and Robin Vandevoordt, from the Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy at Ghent University. He worked on conducting ethnographies through planned field visits to Calais in the hopes of gaining insight on how migrants in transit navigate the complex socio-legal pathways they face. He also contributed to the literature review and data analyses the team aims to perform under the “Lost in transit? Deconstructing the Il/legalization of Migrants Dwelling in European Transit Zones” project.