Book talk: "Islamic Aid and Gulf States in Contemporary Crises"

The Center for Middle Eastern Studies presents

Altea Pericoli
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow jointly affiliated with the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University and the Department of Economics at Ca’ Foscari University

Islamic Aid and Gulf States in Contemporary Crises brings together the analysis of Islamic humanitarianism and Gulf States’ foreign aid, examining how aid policies are shaped and implemented at multiple levels. It focuses on the Syrian humanitarian response between 2015 and 2023, exploring both the top-down decision-making processes behind aid allocation of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates and the on-the-ground negotiations and aid delivery carried out by Gulf charities and local organisations in Syria. Drawing on historical analysis and international relations theories, the book offers a conceptual framework for understanding the factors that influence Gulf States’ aid policies and the complex relationships between donors and recipients in a multipolar humanitarian order.

Altea Pericoli is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow jointly affiliated with the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University and the Department of Economics at Ca’ Foscari University. From 2024 to 2025, she held a postdoctoral position in geopolitics and regional cooperation at the Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University. She earned her PhD at the Catholic University of Milan (2023) and conducted several visiting periods in Europe (Vienna University, Durham University, the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway, the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, and the European University Institute) and in Qatar at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. In 2023, she was awarded the Early Career Development Scholarship by the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies to develop her PhD dissertation into a monograph.

Contact: Liz Flanagan