Dr Janroj Keles

Research activities

He is a Co-investigator for the NuffieldFoundation-funded "Afghan Resettlement in England: Outcomes andExperiences" research project (£268,792) and the GCRF HUB – Gender,Justice, and Security project led by the LSE Centre for Women, Peace andSecurity in partnership with Middlesex University and 17 other institutionsworldwide (£15.2 million). Middlesex University leads the Migration &Displacement segment (£2.6 million), with Professors Eleonore Kofman, and Dr Neelam Raina.

Most recently, he has also been commissioned by the UK Government to co-organize a workshop focused on government engagement with diaspora communities in the UK and to co-write a comprehensive report aimed at developing policies and strategies for effectively engaging with these communities.

Keles has been awarded a research grant withDr Neelam Raina for a study on the Post-Conflict Craft Heritage of Iraq andKurdistan, funded by the Nahren Project, the Arts and Humanities ResearchCouncil, and GCFR (£30,000). His 15 years of experience in higher educationresearch encompass various roles in multiple projects across disciplines,ranging from media and sociology to international relations. He has a proventrack record of securing external research funding, contributing as a ResearchFellow or Co-investigator to projects funded by the ESRC (£360,000), the EUCommission (€319,456), the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (£60,000), and the OECD(£5,000). As a Principal Investigator, he received small grants from theInternational Organisation for Migration for research on undocumented migrantsin the UK (£5,000) and from the Council of The British Institute for the Studyof Iraq for his research project on “Transnational Mobility and Digital SocialNetworking” (£8,000). Moreover, he received a Newton Fund grant to research therole of transnational entrepreneurship in post-conflict developing economies(Kurdistan-Iraq, £3,650).

Previously, he worked as a Lecturer in sociologyand media studies at the Faculty of Applied Social Sciences, London MetropolitanUniversity, and as an Associate Lecturer in the Department of Media andCultural Studies at Birkbeck. He also worked at the Working Lives ResearchInstitute, London Metropolitan University, participating in severalcross-national and interdisciplinary research projects on migration, visual andwork sociology, civic engagement and participation, forced labour, humantrafficking, precarious work, labour movements and trade unions, community,identity, ethnicity, racism, and globalization.

During his PhD,  Keles was part of a researchteam exploring 'Legitimising the Discourses of Radicalisation: PoliticalViolence in the New Media Ecology' for the University of Warwick, worked forHarvard University in London on the political participation and religiousintegration of Muslims in Europe after 9/11, and participated in the MIGSYSresearch project (Professor Russell King) to examine the growing diversity ofmigrant types, nationalities, ethnicities, cultures, languages, andmotivations, especially in "super-diversity" within urban settingssuch as London.

He has published several single-authored andco-authored articles in peer-reviewed high-quality journals, includingPolitical Geography, Industrial Law Journal, Journal of Ethnic and MigrationStudies, Antipode, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior &Research, The Sociological Review, Work, Employment and Society, Journal ofImmigrant & Refugee Studies, Diversity and Inclusion: An InternationalJournal, Societies, Middle East Journal of Culture & Communication, andUrban Studies.

His monograph, Media, Conflict and Diaspora(I.B. Tauris, 2015), was well received. Additionally, his feature articles havebeen published in University World News, Open Democracy, Foreign Policy,European Union Foreign Affairs Journal, and Chartist.

Inrecognition of his intellectual leadership in the field, he has been invited tospeak at the Peace Research Institute, Oslo, Oxford University's RefugeeStudies Centre, SOAS, Warwick University, Iraq Institute for Strategic StudiesCentre, Centres for Turkey Studies, WISER (South Africa), American University of Iraq, Embassy of Denmark, and the Equalityand Human Rights Commission. He is also a member of the Center for Peace andHuman Security (CPHS)’s Steering Committee at the American University ofKurdistan where he contributed to their curriculum on peace-building,co-existence, reconciliation, and minority rights. 

Hehas been very successful in disseminating my research through mainstream media.He has a considerable media presence and have been interviewed by the BBCWorld Service, Channel4,Sky News, France 24, Russian Radio Sputnik, Voice of America, Australian SBS/ABCRadio, TimesHigher Education, Associated Press, German, Kurdish, Turkish, Iranian and Arab media. The interview he gave to the Germaninfluential NOZ newspaper on Iraq has been republished by manynewspapers in Germany and Austria. Besides that, he has written featurearticles for OpenDemocracy, the EuropeanUnion Foreign Affairs Journal and the Commentaries, amongothers, to disseminate my research to policy-makers. Inthis context, his research, publications and public engagement aim tocontribute to the development of “fairer,healthier, more prosperous and more sustainable societies”.

Current Teaching

Keles is module leader of  UG Dissertation, Digital Media and the Social World and Sociology andSocial Change and Societies from Global Perspectives and International Relations of the MiddleEast and North Africa as well as Migration Theories and Approaches (MA), and co-module leader of Politics ofGlobalization (MA). He supervisesboth MA and PhD students.

Keles employs student-centered, inclusive,and critical pedagogies combined with interactive learning activities. Thisapproach aims to raise students' interest in learning, help them present theirideas convincingly, and communicate their understanding effectively. One of hisformer students, now a journalist, stated, "You benefitted me greatly through your teaching and insight into globaland Middle Eastern affairs. The interdisciplinary knowledge gained from yourstudies and personal experience provided us with a well-rounded, impactful, andbalanced understanding of the topics at hand. Your encouragement to record ourinsights and views through blogging also contributed to my current occupationas a journalist and political analyst."

Doctoralsupervision 

 1. DoS ofKhasro Ajgahi: The successful para-diplomacy of Sub-State Actors: The case ofKurdistan Regional Government of Iraq

2.  DoS ofHaider Alkhateeb: Deconstructing the political construction of Sectarianism inIraq: the role of violence in its imposition and perpetuation.

3. DoS of AeinKhezri: Terrorism from the Perspective of Shia Muslim

4. DoS ofAbdulrahman Rashed: New Media & Global Terrorism; the Cyber Battle Space(Completed March 2021)

5. SecondSupervisor of Mohammed Salman Khan: Governance beyond government: the role ofBatkhela Bazaar in improving governance in the Malakand Region (Pakistan) ( Nov2014 – Completed).

6. Externalsupervisor of Shwan Wasim : Kurdish Journalism Cultures; Shiftingboundaries of privacy understanding in the professional role perceptions ofjournalists (Nottingham Trent University) (April 2015- August2017- Completed).