Hi, I'm Lara!

I am an Anthropology PhD Candidate at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. My doctoral project investigates Lebanon's carceral system through a collaborative, artistic, and ethnographic project with formerly incarcerated women. For the past three years, I worked with the university’s Jail Education Initiative as a Graduate Assistant and volunteered as a tutor in several Western Massachusetts jails.

In 2022, I graduated from the American University of Beirut with a Master's in Anthropology, having previously completed an undergraduate degree in Sociology & Anthropology at AUB. I was also involved in student activism throughout these six years.

My goal as an aspiring academic and prison advocate is to deploy anthropology as a space where I can work collaboratively with peers, students, research participants, interlocutors, etc. to imagine and create alternative realities and futures. This year, I taught an introductory anthropology course in a Western Massachusetts Jail, and will continue to teach "Introduction to Anthropology" during AUB's summer semester. After defending my prospectus in May 2025, I will begin my fieldwork year as a Residential Doctoral Fellow at the Orient Institute in Beirut.

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WRITING

Peer-Reviewed Articles

“Exploring Prison Through Memory.” Anthropology & Humanism, April 2025.

““My Government Did This:” Exploring the Erasure of the Beirut Port wall.” Regards, December 2022.

Book Reviews

Review of A War of Colors by Nadine A. Sinno. American Ethnologist, May 2025.

"The Heart of the Death Machine: Prisons and Power in Assad’s Syria." Al Jumhuriya Net, September 2024.

Other

Interview with Mark LeVine on his book Heavy Metal Islam. CaMP Anthropology website, May 2024.

Vitality in Work: Stories from Ras Beirut. PROCOL Working Paper Series Vol. 3, 2022.

“On Living with Other Beings” Rusted Radishes, August 2022.

For more of my writing, check out my Substack!

SPEAKING

“Visibilizing the Invisible: Image-making and Carcerality in Lebanon.” American University of Beirut Sociology-Anthropology and Media Studies “Violence and Visuality” Conference. Beirut, Lebanon (October 2025).

“Doing Collaborative Artistic Ethnography with Formerly Incarcerated Women in Lebanon.” Panel: Politics of Multimodal Anthropology Research. International Society of Ethnology and Folklore Conference. Aberdeen, Scotland (June 2025).

“Possibilities of Life Amidst Captivity: Care and Survival in Lebanon’s Prisons.” The Arab Council for Social Sciences Seventh Conference, Beirut, Lebanon (May 2025).

“Prison Research in Lebanon: Ethnography as a Practice of Reconciling with Uncertainty.” Panel: A New Ethnography of Encounters: Creating Interdisciplinary Networks of Praxis and Learning. American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. Florida, US (November 2024).

“Undoing Carcerality Through Relationship: Stories from a Women’s Prison in Beirut.” Panel: Doing and Undoing with Anthropology. European Association of Social Anthropologists Biennial Conference. Barcelona, Spain (July 2024).

“Graffiti in Beirut: Imagining Alternative Realities.” Panel: (Re)claiming Spaces of Hope and Inspiration: Protest and Revolutionary Aesthetics. European Association of Social Anthropologists Biennial Conference. Belfast, UK (July 2022).

“Imagination, Affect, and Agency: Exploring Beirut’s Post-August 4 Graffiti.” Panel: Revolt in a Time of Collapse: Revolution, Dignity, and Livelihood in Lebanon and the Contemporary Arab World. Drafting and Enacting Revolution in the Arab Mediterranean Conference. Beirut, Lebanon (June 2022).