Eleanor Beaton
Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Year of study: 1
- School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures
Contact details
- Email: s1827344@ed.ac.uk
PhD supervisors:
Background
Eleanor Beaton (she/her) is a doctoral researcher working between Migration studies, Anthropology, and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Edinburgh.
In my ethnographic research, I work with Arab and Arabic-speaking trans* migrants and refugees in Germany to imagine an alternative abolitionist politics of protection. My research takes the legal terminology of 'vulnerability' in asylum and the emergence of the 'vulnerable trans refugee' as a starting point, to examine questions concerning queer and feminist complicities in carcerality.
Provisional title: Arab Trans Migrants on the Borders of Vulnerability
Other experience:
Lead Researcher, QUAGA/Rubicon e.V, Cologne (February-July 2026): I was lead researcher on the Trans* - Flucht & Gewalt project. In this role, I led a research project with fifteen trans* asylum-seekers and refugees in NRW in Germany, carrying out focus groups, analysing data, and drafting a policy-oriented research report.
Qualifications
- PhD Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Edinburgh (September 2024 - Present):
- Supervised by Dr. Ebtihal Mahadeen and Dr. Giulia Liberatore
- Funded by SGSSS/ESRC
- Thesis title: Arab Trans Migrants on the Borders of Vulnerability
- Overseas fieldwork in Berlin, Germany (July 2025 - June 2026)
- MSc Social Research, University of Edinburgh (September 2023 - August 2024):
- Supervised by Dr. Giulia Liberatore
- Funded by SGSSS/ESRC
- Thesis title: Family, violence, community: A transnational analysis of the experiences of trans migrants from the Middle East and North Africa living in Europe
- Awarded overall best grade in MSc cohort
- MA Arabic and French, University of Edinburgh (September 2018 - July 2022):
- Supervised by Dr. Ebtihal Mahadeen
- Thesis title: Queer frames and framing queers: identity, belonging, and community among queer migrants from the Middle East and North Africa in MyKali
- Awarded the Carole Hillenbrand Prize for best undergraduate dissertation in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, and the Irene Crawford Prize for best overall performance in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies
Responsibilities & affiliations
Stuart Hall Foundation fellow (September 2023 - Present)
Funded by Economic and Social Research Council/Scottish Graduate School of Social Sciences
Current project grants
Economic and Social Research Council/Scottish Graduate School of Social Science, 1+3 Doctoral Training Programme in Language-Based Area Studies and International Development
Conference details
- 2026
- Stuart Hall Foundation workshop with Fred Moten in London (May 2026)
- Trans Virtual Centre of Excellence symposium, 'Existing Otherwise', co-convened with BiGS at Birkbeck, University of London (July 2026): “Who is the legitimate subject of trans research? Or, if you’d asked me that summer what a hospital was…”
- Transgender Europe Annual Council in Ljubljana, Slovenia (September 2026): presenting on a panel alongside TGEU staff to share research concerning trans refugee issues in Europe.
- Queer(y)ing Asylum conference, Complutense University in Madrid (October 2026): presenting research on vulnerability identification procedures for trans asylum-seekers and refugees in Germany.
- 2025
- Citizenship and Migration Research Network at University of Edinburgh (February 2025): “Contemplating Kinship: The role of family in the experience of transfeminine migrants from Lebanon living in Germany”.
- Stuart Hall Foundation workshop with Françoise Vergès in London (May 2025)
- Migration and Mobilities Research Network at University of Napier (June 2025): “Contemplating Kinship: The role of family in the experience of transfeminine migrants from Lebanon living in Germany”.
- COC Netherlands Queer Asylum conference in Amsterdam (November 2025): “Tracing the precarious potentialities of vulnerability politics among trans asylum-seekers, refugees, and migrants in contemporary German migration governance (2015-2025)”.
- Sociological Review Early Career Researchers day in Glasgow on ethnography in migration studies with Professor Shahram Khosravi and Professor Karen O’Reilly(November 2025)
Invited speaker
Guest lecture for Dr. Tunay Altay’s course, Queer and Feminist Methodologies, at Humboldt University of Berlin (June 2026): “Who is the rightful subject of trans refugee research?”
Participant
- Understanding Human Behaviour: Working with Emotionally Demanding Material (Centre-UB, University of Birmingham; January 2025)
- Mental Health First Aid certification (SMHFA, Edinburgh; November 2024)
- Researching Vulnerable Groups: Trauma informed research methods (SGSSS, Edinburgh; November 2022)