Dr Hannah Sender (she/her)

School of Geography and Planning

Leverhulme Early Career Fellow

h.sender@sheffield.ac.uk

Geography and Planning Building

Full contact details

Dr Hannah Sender
School of Geography and Planning
Geography and Planning Building
Winter Street
Sheffield
S3 7ND

Profile

Hannah Sender is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the School of Geography and Planning. Hannah’s current research is exploring urban changes in small towns through the lens of land, inter- and intra-familial propertied relations, and land-related injustices. Her previous research has examined rapid urbanisation, rent relations, and displacement in Lebanon and the UK.

Hannah has received funding from the ESRC for post-doctoral and PhD research on rapid urbanisation of small Lebanese towns affected by mass forced migration from Syria. She has been a Research Fellow on other UKRI-funded projects, whilst based at University College London. Hannah is also a Research Associate at the Beirut Urban Lab, at the American University of Beirut.

Research interests

Hannah’s primary research interests lie in rapid urban change of smaller urban centres, whose (de)urbanisation trajectories can inform better understandings of what the ‘urban’ is today.

Hannah’s work aims to contribute to the ‘planetary urbanism’ debates, through research about urban places marginalised in planning theory and practice. She uses post-colonial planning lenses, particularly drawing on those from Lebanese scholars, and comparative urbanism methodologies to consider how planning jurisdictions condition the relative power of different subjects to make or deconstruct urban places in the present. Hannah is particularly interested in the role of property-owning families in shaping urbanisation trajectories.

Publications

Journal articles

Sender H (2025) Researching Otherwise: Pluriversal Methodologies for Landscape and Urban Studies. Landscape Research, 50(2), 405-408.
Sender H (2024) Making rent: how forced migrant families access private rental housing in the Biqa’ Valley, Lebanon. Environment and Urbanization, 36(2), 401-417.
Sender H, Orcutt M, Btaiche R, Dabaj J, Nagi Y, Abdallah R, Corona S, Moore H, Fouad F & Devakumar D (2023) Social and cultural conditions affecting the mental health of Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian adolescents living in and around Bar Elias, Lebanon. Journal of Migration and Health, 7, 100150-100150.
Sender H (2023) Interrupted interviews: Learning from young people's lived environments in Lebanon. Area, 55(2), 239-244.
Greatrick A, Al-Waeli J, Sender H, Maioli SC, Li JL & Goodwin E (2022) Adapting to Crisis. Migration and Society, 5(1), 115-123.
Sender H (2022) Young people’s perspectives of inequitable urban change in Lebanese towns affected by mass displacement. Regional Science Policy & Practice, 14(2), 293-307.
Nagi Y, Sender H, Orcutt M, Fouad F, Burgess RA & Devakumar D (2021) Resilience as a communal concept: Understanding adolescent resilience in the context of the Syrian refugee crisis in Bar Elias, Lebanon. Journal of Migration and Health, 3, 100046-100046.
Sender H, Baumann H & Dabaj J () REPRESENTING POLLUTION AT THE AGRARIAN–URBAN FRONTIER: Participatory Documentary Film‐Making in Bar Elias, Lebanon. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.
Fonagy P, Chammay RE, Ngunu C, Kumar M, Verdeli L, Allison E, Anani G, Fearon P, Fouad F, Hoare Z , Koyio L et al () Implementing and evaluating group interpersonal therapy for postnatal depression in Lebanon and Kenya—individually randomised superiority trial. Trials, 25(1).

Book chapters

Sender H, Nagi Y & Talea DB (2022) Encountering (Un)familiar Places in a Place Affected by Displacement: How Young People Sense the (Un)familiar and How It Affects Their Mental Health, Unfamiliar Landscapes (pp. 391-414). Springer International Publishing