Katty Alhayek
Dr. Katty Alhayek is an Assistant Professor in the School of Professional Communication at Toronto Metropolitan University in Canada. Alhayek’s research centers around themes of marginality, media, audiences, gender, intersectionality, and displacement in a transnational context. Alhayek completed her Ph.D. in Communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the United States of America with a graduate certificate in Advanced Feminist Studies.
Her publications include articles in the International Journal of Communication; Feminist Media Studies; Gender, Technology and Development; Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies; International Review of Qualitative Research; International Journal of Middle East Studies; and Rubix Journal for Creative Research and Practice. Her scholarship and teaching are inspired by her lived experience as a scholar activist from Syria as well as her work with international organizations like the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.
My scholarly projects have been innovative, interdisciplinary, and inspired by subfields such as audience research, fandom, feminist media studies, migration, technology and social change, food communication, and critical cultural studies.
A central theme in my scholarship is how marginalized groups use social media to wield power and cope with unjust life conditions. For example, my rarticle “Watching television while forcibly displaced: Syrian refugees as participant audiences,” published in Participations: Journal of Audience & Reception Studies focuses on marginalized displaced audiences’ online engagement with TV texts that tackle the Syrian refugee crisis. I show the ways in which the entertainment intervention of drama creators provided displaced audiences with scripts to mitigate the traumatic effects of a highly polarizing conflict, and to find a healing space from violent and alienating dominant media discourses.
Through the lens of feminist and critical cultural studies, I also explore issues of gender, technology, and empowerment. For instance, I am interested in how displaced Syrian women journalists and activists use Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) for empowerment in their personal and professional lives and to foster positive affects of solidarity, hope, and possibilities. I examine the ways in which they tackle issues such as reproductive rights, women’s and children’s health, technical literacy, security and harassment.
Alhayek, K. )July 14, 2025(. Syrian Online Spaces of Possibilities: Small-scale Media in War and Displacement Contexts. Rubix Journal for Creative Research and Practice, 1-33. (Open Access).
Zeno, Basileus & Alhayek, K. )June 2025(. 'Beyond Preaching Unity and Inclusion: Observations from Syria’s Media and Online Spaces'. Allegra Lab. (Open Access (external link) ).
Alhayek, K., Zeno, Basileus. (2023). Decolonizing Displacement Research: Betweener Autoethnography as a Method of Resistance. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 55(3), 548-555. doi:10.1017/S0020743823001071 (Open Access (external link) )
Alhayek, K., Alexander, B. K., Foster, E., Hernandez, C. G., Mackie-Stephenson, A., Moreira, C., Pelias, J, R., Poulos, C., Sutton, T., and Twishime, P. I. (2023). “Collaborative Autoethnographic Writing as Communal Curative.” International Review of Qualitative Research, 15(4), 544-570.doi:10.1177/19408447211068193
Alexander, B. K., Hernandez, C. G., Pelias, R. J., Alhayek, K., Poulos, C., Moreira, C., Sutton, T., Stephenson, A., Foster, E., & Twishime, P. I. (2023). “Inter and Enter: An Invitation to Collaboration Thru Autoethnography.” International Review of Qualitative Research, 15(4), 511-543. https://doi.org/10.1177/19408447211049527 (external link)
Alhayek, Katty. (2020). (PDF file) Watching television while forcibly displaced: Syrian refugees as participant audiences. Participations: Journal of Audience & Reception Studies, 17(1), 8-28. ( (PDF file) Open Access (external link) )
Alexander, B. K., Stephenson-Celadilla, A. Alhayek, K., et al (2019). "‘I'm sorry my hair is blocking your smile’: A Performative Assemblage and Intercultural Dialogue on the Politics of Hair and Place (external link) ". International Review of Qualitative Research, 12(4), 339–362.
[Recipient of the Ellis-Bochner Autoethnography and Personal Narrative Research Award.]
Alhayek, Katty. (2017). Emotional Realism, Affective Labor and Politics in the Arab Fandom of Game of Thrones. International Journal of Communication, 11, 3740–3763. (Open Access (external link) )
Alhayek, Katty. (2016). ICTs, Agency, and Gender in Syrian Activists’ Work among Syrian Refugees in Jordan (external link) . Gender, Technology and Development 20(3), 333-351.
[Recipient of the Center for International Studies Best Essay Award, Ohio University]
Alhayek, Katty. (2015). “ (PDF file) I must save my life and not risk my family’s safety!”: Untold Stories of Syrian Women Surviving War (external link) . Syria Studies. 7(1), 1-30. (Open Access)
[Republished by Jadaliyya (external link) and (PDF file) International Relations Insights & Analysis Report - Middle East and Challenges Ahead (external link) .
Translated to Spanish by rebelion.org (external link) ]
Alhayek, Katty. (2014). Double Marginalization: The Invisibility of Syrian Refugee Women's Perspectives in Mainstream Online Activism and Global Media. Feminist Media Studies, 14(4), 696-700.
[Reprinted in Women of the Middle East (external link) , edited by Fatma Müge Göçek, Routledge]
Dr. Alhayek's work has been awarded grants from major international organizations and universities, including the Open Society Foundations, the Social Science Research Council, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and the International Development Research Centre.
Her 2019 collaborative article published in the International Review of Qualitative Research received the Ellis-Bochner Autoethnography and Personal Narrative Research Award.
In 2021-2022, she received the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Global Academy fellowship.
Her 2024-25 collaborative research project, titled Knowledge Production and Diaspora Politics: A Syrian Case Study (with Basileus Zeno and Mimi Kirk), was awarded a grant by the International Development Research Centre and the Asfari Foundation.