Staff profile

Olga Demetriou joined the Durham Global Security Institute at the School in 2018 and has been its Programme Director since 2019. She has trained in social anthropology and has led projects on minority rights, gender, displacement, and refugeehood, for the last two decades.Her current interests focus on activism in refugee reception sites in the Mediterranean, specifically in Spain, Italy, Greece and Cyprus. 

She has authored two monographs, Capricious Borders: Minority, Population and Counter-Conduct between Greece and Turkey (Berghahn, 2013/2017) and Refugeehood and the Post Conflict Subject: Reconsidering Minor Losses (SUNY Press, 2018). She was previously affiliated with PRIO, the University of Cyprus, and Amnesty International, where she was the organisation's researcher on Greece and Cyprus. 

Supervision Areas

I welcome enquiries about doctoral projects on the following areas:

• Ethnography of Migration and Refugee Regimes
• Gendered (In)securities
• Post-conflict Transitions
• Political orders in Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey

Teaching

• Gender, Security, and Post-Conflict Reconstruction (-2021)
• Gender in the UN Global Security Agenda (2021 onwards)
• Conflict Prevention and Sustainable Peace
• Post-Conflict Reconstruction and State-Building
• Capstone: Humanitarian Simulation Exercise
• Consolidating Peace After Violence
• Fieldtrip (Cyprus) 
• Conflict Analysis

• Refugees and Displacement
• European Asylum System
• Citizenship and Mobility
• Gender, feminism and peace building
• Cultural heritage conflicts

• Contesting Migration project
• Declaration of Citizenship initiative (with Jacqueline Stevens and others)
• The Politics of Credibility

• 2022: Grants:
  • 2023-2027: UKRI, ESRC Individual Research grant, ;Pro- and Anti-Migrant Mobilization in Mediterranean Refugee Reception Sites [Contesting Migration], ;ES/W012324/1 (with Antonis Ellinas, UCY)
  • 2022-2024: Cyprus Research and Innovation, RESTART Excellence Hubs: Pro- and Anti- Migrant Migrant Mobilization in Eastern Mediterranean Refugee Reception Sites [MEDRECEPTIONS] (PI: Antonis Ellinas)
  • 2021-2023: British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant: Pro- and Anti- Migrant Activism in Mediterranean Refugee Reception Sites: Developing Analytic Tools in Ethnography and Comparative Politics (with Antonis Ellinas, UCY)
  • 2021: The Politics of Credibility: Durham Institute of Advanced Studies (with Elisabeth Kirtsoglou) ;
  • 2020: Declaration of Citizenship project (PI: Jacqueline Stevens) ;
  • 2019: Refugee Regimes in Southwestern Europe (Durham University) ;
  • 2018: Women in the Peace Process: Lessons from Northern Ireland (Ireland MFA) ;
  • 2017: The Aftermath of Hotspots (PRIO Strategic Projects) ;
  • 2016: Women’s Peace: Gender in the Peace Negotiations (Norway MFA) ;
  • 2009: Internal Displacement in Cyprus: The Consequences of Civil and Military Strife (European Commission) ;
  • 2008: Cultural Heritage and the Re-construction of Identities after Conflict –CRIC (EU 7th framework) ;
  • 2008: COST Action IS0803: Remaking eastern borders in Europe – EastBordNet ;
  • 2002: Insecure Minorities in Conditions of Ethnic Antagonism in the Balkans and Cyprus (Wenner Gren Foundation) ;
  • 1998: Emslie Horniman Anthropological Scholarship (Royal Anthropological Institute)
• 2021: Visiting Senior Fellow, Hellenic Observatory, LSE: Project title: "The States that Refugees define"
• 2011: Committees:
  • Technical Committee on Gender Equality, Cyprus peace process, 2015-2021
  • Society for the Anthropology of Europe (American Anthropological Association): treasurer 2016-2018
  • Gender Advisory Team, Cyprus: founding member, 2011-
• 2008: Consultancies:
  • Amnesty International, 2010, 2011
  • International Organisation for Migration, 2019
  • Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, 2008
  • United Nations Development Programme, 2009
  • British Council, Nicosia, 2007
• 2008: Peer Review: Editorial teams:
  • 2019-2021: Journal of Modern Greek Studies (Associate Editor in Social Sciences)
  • 2017-2019: Public Anthropologist (reviews editor)
  • 2008-2015: The Cyprus Review (co-editor and book reviews)

  Editorial/advisory boards:

  • Public Anthropologist
  • Journal of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies
  • Feminist Encounters
  • Rethinking Borders, MUP
  • Hellenic Observatory, LSE

Available for media contact about:

• Anthropology: law and emergency; refugees/forced displacement; Mediterranean reception sites; women in post-conflict environments; minorities within citizenship regimes

Authored book

• Demetriou, Olga M. (2018). Refugeehood and the Post Conflict Subject: Reconsidering Minor Losses. New York State University of New York Press.
• Demetriou, Olga (2013). Capricious Borders: Minority, Population, and Counter-Conduct between Greece and Turkey. Berghahn Books.

Chapter in book

• Demetriou, Olga. (2021). Migration, Minorities, and Refugeehood in Cyprus. In Jahrbuch für Europäische Ethnologie. Treiber, Angela, Alzheimer, Heidrun, Doering-Manteuffel, Sabine & Drascek, Daniel Ferdinand Schöningh, Brill. 15: 91-120.
• Demetriou, Olga & Hadjipavlou, Maria (2020). Women and Peace Negotiations in Cyprus. In The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies. Richmond, Oliver & Visoka, Gëzim Palgrave.
• Demetriou, Olga & Dimova, Rozita (2018). Theorising material / nonmaterial mediations on the border. In The political materialities of borders: New theoretical directions. Demetriou, Olga & Dimova, Rozita Manchester University Press. 1-15.
• Demetriou, Olga (2018). Materiality, imbrication, and the longue durée of Greco-Turkish borders. In The political materialities of borders: New theoretical directions. Demetriou, Olga & Dimova, Rozita Manchester University Press. 16-35.
• Demetriou, Olga (2015). Grand Ruins: Ledra Palace Hotel and the Rendering of ‘Conflict’ as Heritage in Cyprus. In War and Cultural Heritage: Biographies of Place. Stig Sørensen, Marie Louise & Viejo-Rose, Dacia Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 183-207.
• Demetriou, Olga, Mavris, John C. & Christou, Georgina (2011). Becoming Good Neighbours in Cyprus. In Negotiating Multicultural Europe: Borders, Networks, Neighbourhoods. Armbruster, Heidi & Meinhof, Ulrike London: Palgrave Macmillan. 25-44.
• Demetriou, Olga (2009). Catalysis, catachresis: the EU's impact on the Cyprus conflict. In The European Union and Border Conflicts. Diez, Thomas, Albert, Mathias & Stetter, Stephan 64-93.

Edited book

• Demetriou, Olga & Dimova, Rozita (2018). The Political Materialities of Borders: New Theoretical Directions. Rethinking Borders. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Journal Article

• Demetriou, Olga (2023). Reconsidering the vignette as method. American Ethnologist 50(2): 208-222.
• Demetriou, Olga (2022). Complementary Protection and the Recognition Rate as Tools of Governance: Ordering Europe, fragmenting Rights. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 48(5): 1264-1285.
• Demetriou, Olga (2020). The War that keeps on raping: Femicide and Sexual Violence in Post-conflict Cyprus. Feministiqa 3(1): online.
• Demetriou, Olga & Erdal Ilican, Murat (2019). A peace of bricks and mortar: thinking ceasefire landscapes with Gramsci. International Journal of Heritage Studies 25(9): 897-913.
• Demetriou, Olga & Hadjipavlou, Maria (2018). The Impact of Women's Activism on the Peace Negotiations in Cyprus. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 24(1): 50-65.
• Demetriou, Olga (2016). Counter-Conduct and the Everyday: Anthropological Engagements with Philosophy. Global Society 30(2): 218-237.
• Demetriou, Olga & Hadjipavlou, Maria (2014). a feminist position on sharing governmental power and forging citizenship in Cyprus: proposals for the ongoing peace negotiations. Feminist Review 107(1): 98-106.
• Demetriou, Olga (2014). ‘Struck by the Turks’ reflections on Armenian refugeehood in Cyprus. Patterns of Prejudice 48(2): 167-181.
• Demetriou, Olga (2012). The Militarization of Opulence. International Feminist Journal of Politics 14(1): 56-77.
• Constantinou, Costas M., Demetriou, Olga & Hatay, Mete (2012). Conflicts and Uses of Cultural Heritage in Cyprus. Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 14(2): 177-198.
• Demetriou, Olga (2008). Reading the Paratexts of the Cyprus Conflict: Policy, Science and the Pursuit of 'Objectivity'. The Cyprus Review 20(1): 93-113.
• Demetriou, Olga (2007). To cross or not to cross? Subjectivization and the absent state in Cyprus. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 13(4): 987-1006.
• Demetriou, Olga (2006). Streets Not Named: Discursive Dead Ends and the Politics of Orientation in Intercommunal Spatial Relations in Northern Greece. Cultural Anthropology 21(2): 295-321.
• Demetriou, Olga (2006). Owing the Seed: The Discursive Economy of Sex Migration among Turkish-speaking Minority Urbanites in the Postsocialist Balkan Periphery. Identities 13(2): 261-282.
• Demetriou, Olga (2005). The Original Turkish State: Opposing Nationalism in Nationalist Terms. New Perspectives on Turkey 33: 93-119.
• Demetriou, Olga (2004). Prioritizing ‘ethnicities’ The ­uncertainty of Pomak-ness in the urban Greek Rhodoppe. Ethnic and Racial Studies 27(1): 95-119.
• Demetriou, Olga (2004). The Turkish Oedipus: National Self and Stereotype in the Work of a 1960s Greek Cartoonist 1. History and Anthropology 15(1): 69-89.

Newspaper/Magazine Article

• Demetriou, Olga & Stevens, Jacqueline (2021). Re-founding justice amid national violence and disparities: Towards a Declaration of Citizenship. Routed Magazine (Borders and Justice).

Other (Print)

• Demetriou, Olga & Hadjipavlou, Maria (2022). The Impact of Women's Activism on the Peace Negotiations in Cyprus. In Power-Sharing Pacts and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda. Byrne, Siobhan & McCulloch, Allison Routledge. 83-105.

Report

• Demetriou, Olga, Hadjipavlou, Maria, Bozkurt, Umut, Mertan, Biran, Atli, Mine, Taki, Yiouli, Zincir Celal, Rana & Zenon, Magda (2012). Women's Peace in Cyprus: Recommendations of the Gender Advisory Team (GAT) on the Peace Negotiations in Cyprus. Peace Research Institute Oslo.
• Demetriou, Olga, Hadjipavlou, Maria, Bozkurt, Umut, Mertan, Biran, Atli, Mine, Taki, Yiouli, Zincir Celal, Rana & Zenon, Magda (2012). Women's Peace in Cyprus: Recommendations of the Gender Advisory Team (GAT)on Implementing UNSCR 1325 Provisions on Women, Peace and Security. Peace Research Institute Oslo.