Staff profile

Olga Demetriou is Director of the Durham Global Security Institute at the School of Governemnt and International Affairs. She is a social anthropologist with interests in citizenship, gender, displacement, and refugeehood.Her current work focusses on activism in refugee reception sites in Spain, Italy, Greece and Cyprus. 

Her 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), explore questions of borders, exclusions, and conflict legacies. Before joining the School and DGSi in 2018, she was 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 in the following areas:

• Ethnography of Migration and Refugee Regimes
• Gender and Conflict
• Politics of the everyday in Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey

Teaching

Modules convened at DGSi:

• 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

• 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: 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
• 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

Authored book

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

Chapter in book

• Demetriou, O., & Hadjipavlou, M. (2021). The Impact of Women's Activism on the Peace Negotiations in Cyprus. In S. Byrne, & A. McCulloch (Eds.), Power-Sharing Pacts and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda (83-105). Routledge
• Demetriou, O. (2021). Migration, Minorities, and Refugeehood in Cyprus. In A. Treiber, H. Alzheimer, S. Doering-Manteuffel, & D. Drascek (Eds.), Jahrbuch für Europäische Ethnologie (91-120). Ferdinand Schöningh, Brill. https://doi.org/10.30965/9783657704750_007
• Demetriou, O., & Hadjipavlou, M. (2020). Women and Peace Negotiations in Cyprus. In O. Richmond, & G. Visoka (Eds.), The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies. Palgrave. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11795-5_105-1
• Demetriou, O. (2018). Materiality, imbrication, and the longue durée of Greco-Turkish borders. In O. Demetriou, & R. Dimova (Eds.), The political materialities of borders: New theoretical directions (16-35). Manchester University Press
• Demetriou, O., & Dimova, R. (2018). Theorising material / nonmaterial mediations on the border. In O. Demetriou, & R. Dimova (Eds.), The political materialities of borders: New theoretical directions (1-15). Manchester University Press
• Demetriou, O. (2015). Grand Ruins: Ledra Palace Hotel and the Rendering of ‘Conflict’ as Heritage in Cyprus. In M. L. Stig Sørensen, & D. Viejo-Rose (Eds.), War and cultural heritage : biographies of place (183-207). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781107444911.008
• Demetriou, O., Mavris, J. C., & Christou, G. (2011). Becoming Good Neighbours in Cyprus. In H. Armbruster, & U. Meinhof (Eds.), Negotiating Multicultural Europe: Borders, Networks, Neighbourhoods (25-44). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230346475_2
• Demetriou, O. (2008). Catalysis, catachresis: the EU's impact on the Cyprus conflict. In T. Diez, M. Albert, & S. Stetter (Eds.), The European Union and Border Conflicts (64-93). https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511491337.004

Edited book

• Demetriou, O., & Dimova, R. (Eds.). (2018). The Political Materialities of Borders: New Theoretical Directions. Manchester University Press

Journal Article

• Demetriou, O. (2023). The Spirit of the Convention and the Letter of the Colony: Refugees Defining States in a British Overseas Territory. International Political Sociology, 17(4), 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1093/ips/olad020
• Demetriou, O., Constantinou, C. M., & Tselepou, M. (2023). Lateral colonialism: exploring modalities of engagement in decolonial politics from the periphery. Third World Quarterly, 44(9), 2173-2190. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2023.2226607
• Demetriou, O. (2023). Reconsidering the vignette as method. American Ethnologist, 50(2), 208-222. https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.13145
• Demetriou, O. (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. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183x.2019.1682979
• Demetriou, O. (2020). The War that keeps on raping: Femicide and Sexual Violence in Post-conflict Cyprus. Feministiqa, 3(1),
• Demetriou, O., & Erdal Ilican, M. (2019). A peace of bricks and mortar: thinking ceasefire landscapes with Gramsci. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 25(9), 897-913. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2017.1413673
• Demetriou, O., & Hadjipavlou, M. (2018). The Impact of Women's Activism on the Peace Negotiations in Cyprus. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 24(1), 50-65. https://doi.org/10.1080/13537113.2017.1422639
• Demetriou, O. (2016). Counter-Conduct and the Everyday: Anthropological Engagements with Philosophy. Global Society, 30(2), 218-237. https://doi.org/10.1080/13600826.2015.1133568
• Demetriou, O., & Hadjipavlou, M. (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. https://doi.org/10.1057/fr.2014.6
• Demetriou, O. (2014). ‘Struck by the Turks’: reflections on Armenian refugeehood in Cyprus. Patterns of Prejudice, 48(2), 167-181. https://doi.org/10.1080/0031322x.2014.905369
• Demetriou, O. (2012). The Militarization of Opulence. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 14(1), 56-77. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616742.2011.631286
• Constantinou, C. M., Demetriou, O., & Hatay, M. (2012). Conflicts and Uses of Cultural Heritage in Cyprus. Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, 14(2), 177-198. https://doi.org/10.1080/19448953.2012.681923
• Demetriou, O. (2008). Reading the Paratexts of the Cyprus Conflict: Policy, Science and the Pursuit of 'Objectivity'
• Demetriou, O. (2007). To cross or not to cross? Subjectivization and the absent state in Cyprus. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 13(4), 987-1006. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9655.2007.00468.x
• Demetriou, O. (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. https://doi.org/10.1525/can.2006.21.2.295
• Demetriou, O. (2006). Owing the Seed: The Discursive Economy of Sex Migration among Turkish-speaking Minority Urbanites in the Postsocialist Balkan Periphery. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 13(2), 261-282. https://doi.org/10.1080/10702890600698678
• Demetriou, O. (2005). The Original Turkish State: Opposing Nationalism in Nationalist Terms. New Perspectives on Turkey, 33, 93-119. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0896634600004258
• Demetriou, O. (2004). Prioritizing ‘ethnicities’: The ­uncertainty of Pomak-ness in the urban Greek Rhodoppe. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 27(1), 95-119. https://doi.org/10.1080/0141987032000147959
• Demetriou, O. (2004). The Turkish Oedipus: National Self and Stereotype in the Work of a 1960s Greek Cartoonist 1. History and Anthropology, 15(1), 69-89. https://doi.org/10.1080/025720042000191037

Other (Print)

• Demetriou, O., & Stevens, J. (online). Re-founding justice amid national violence and disparities: Towards a Declaration of Citizenship

Report

• Demetriou, O., Hadjipavlou, M., Bozkurt, U., Mertan, B., Atli, M., Taki, Y., Zincir Celal, R., & Zenon, M. (2012). Women's Peace in Cyprus: Recommendations of the Gender Advisory Team (GAT) on the Peace Negotiations in Cyprus. Peace Research Institute Oslo
• Demetriou, O., Hadjipavlou, M., Bozkurt, U., Mertan, B., Atli, M., Taki, Y., Zincir Celal, R., & Zenon, M. (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