Kawtar Najib

Dr Kawtar Najib is a Visiting Researcher at Newcastle University in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology. She was a Marie Curie Fellow at Newcastle University (2016-2018) where she was the lead researcher of the SAMA "Spaces of Anti-Muslim Acts in Paris and London" project funded by the European Commission. Her work shows the impact of Islamophobic discrimination on spaces and people by analysing the spatial distribution of such acts, the spatial and behavioural strategies of victims, their spatial scales of belonging, and the interrelation with other types of discrimination such as sexism, racism, ageism and classism.

Her previous research (PhD) was primarily focused on socio-spatial segregation both from the perspective of the categorisation of spaces and identity-building. She highlighted 1) the urban dynamics in terms of socio-spatial differentiations and transformations; and 2) the ways of living in a district in terms of residential logics and spatial practices and representations. In her masters, she studied the spatial dynamics of immigrant religious groups (i.e. Muslim and Buddhist populations) and the impact of their religious practices on potential situation of exclusion and discrimination.

Her research interests centre on social and urban geographies of inequality and discrimination, and more specifically on:
- Religious and territorial discrimination, Geographies of Islamophobia;
- Geography of "Othering", Minority religious groups;
- Socio-spatial inequalities, Urban segregation;
- Residential mobility, Spatial representations, Urban and housing policy;
- Quantitative and qualitative methods.