Sonia CHABANE

 

Location J Building Office J.1.101 Mailing address Université libre de Bruxelles Avenue Franklin D. Roosevelt, 50 - CP 172/01 1050 Bruxelles Belgique sonia.chabane@ulb.be Linkedin

Bio

Sonia Chabane (she/her) is a PhD Student within the REPI and an Assistant within ULB’s Political Science Department. She holds three Master’s degrees: one from the Global Campus of Human Rights with a regional focus on human rights within the ‘Arab world’ (2021, valedictorian) and a Dual MA in the Governance of International Relations from Sciences Po Toulouse and University-Toulouse-1 Capitole (2022), with a research specialisation. She also holds a Bachelor from Sciences Po Toulouse.
Before joining ULB, Sonia was a Project Manager at the Trans-European Policy Studies Association (TEPSA) for three years, where she managed the supply of external academic expertise to all European Parliament’s Committees and Subcommittees in EU’s foreign affairs, especially on matters of human rights, development and humanitarian assistance and the EU’s Southern and Eastern Neighbourhoods, including the Greater Middle East. Between 2023 and 2025, Sonia was a Global Fellow at Brown University’s Centre for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies and joined JUSTES (JUSTice Ecologique et Sociale), a FNRS interdisciplinary research group in Belgium, researching social and ecological justice.
In the years prior, Sonia strengthened her background, working on humanitarian assistance and development cooperation, forced displacement and human rights mechanisms in Turkey, the Mashreq, Maghreb and the Gulf, through international experience in research institutes (CNRS, Istanbul Policy Center), academia (Yeditepe, Saint-Joseph of Beirut, University College London), think tanks (TEPSA, European Horizons and the Turkish Heritage Organization) and non-governmental organisations.

Research presentation

This PhD project examines how regional expert networks in Europe organise the humanitarian sector’s ecological transformation, especially in the Mediterranean region. Grounded in critical think tank studies and postcolonial studies, along with methods from organisational ethnography, it analyses the institutionalisation and operationalisation of environmental commitments across multiple levels of humanitarian governance.

Areas of interest

• Humanitarian governance and its transformations, including ecological transition, technological and financial integration and changing labour relations.
• Climate change adaptation and crisis management across the Southern Mediterranean, the Mashreq and the Gulf.
• EU-Southern Neighbourhood relations, including humanitarian, development cooperation and migration and border policies.
• Knowledge, expertise, power and decolonial perspectives in humanitarian and human rights governance.

Selected publications

Peer-reviewed articles

• Chabane, S. (forthcoming, accepted, 2026). Grassroots volunteer, camouflaged workers of the supply chain of globalised international aid and development. Citizenship Studies.
• Daher, M., Chabane, S., Al-Masri, M. and Shehabi, A. (forthcoming, in press, 2026). Decolonising Deliberation: Citizens Assemblies as a claimed space to forge bottom-up democracy in Lebanon and Tunisia. Politics and Governance.

Reports & Studies

• Chabane S. Chapter 2: Strengthening Cooperation through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism in Alfonso, L., Soud Deifallah Alghrair T., Yazbek, C., Chabane S. and Maj, A. Fostering Regional Cooperation on Natural Disasters and Crisis Management in the Mediterranean, European Institute of the Mediterranean, November 2025
• Chabane S., Benslimane Y., Tayyeb Z., Soltan A., Murphy M., Levine A. C. (2025), The Women, Peace and Security Agenda in the Middle East. Brown University, Watson Institute for International Public Affairs, 2025.
• Chabane, S. and Heurton, A. (2024). Opportunities and challenges of the green transition for pastoralism and indigenous people in Africa. European Parliament’s Policy Department, DG for External Policies, Workshop Proceedings, PE754.455.
• Chabane, S. and Bonacquisti, G. (2023). Developing countries’ energy needs and priorities under a sustainable development perspective: The specific case of Africa and green hydrogen. European Parliament’s Policy Department, DG for External Policies, Workshop Proceedings, PE754.
• Chabane, S. (2023). Strengthening the Right to Participate: Legitimacy and Resilience of Electoral Processes in Illiberal Political Systems and Authoritarian Regimes. European Parliament’s Policy Department, DG for External Policies, Workshop Proceedings, PE702.581.
• Chabane, S. and Rusconi, I. (2023). Implementation mechanisms of the Human Rights Clause. Case studies on Ethiopia, Tunisia and Vietnam. European Parliament’s Policy Department, DG for External Policies, Workshop Proceedings, PE754.447.

Communications

• IMISCOE Annual International Conference, Workshop on “Volunteering and Precarious Citizenship: Negotiations of Labour, Care, Justice, and Social Reproduction” (July 2024, Lisbon, Portugal): Grassroots volunteer, camouflaged workers of the supply chain of globalised international aid and development (workshop coordinated by M. Gembus and L. van der Veer).
• Seminar on “Exploring Vulnerability(ies) and Resilience: Learning from Populations on the Move”, Istanbul Policy Center (05 May 2023, Istanbul, Turkey): Camouflaged Grassroots under state’s tolerance: migrant volunteer work and organizing for ‘undesirable’ displaced populations in Turkey.
• International conference: Herkunft Zukunft, HTW Berlin (November 2020, Berlin, Germany): 2016 EU-Turkey deal and ahead: multi-level actors involved in the Syrian refugee response.
• International Tricontinental Conference: Postcolonial Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, Yeditepe University (May 2019, Istanbul, Turkey): 2016 EU-Turkey deal and the Syrian refugee response: empirical material from the frontlines.