World Lebanese Cultural Union

 INGO Associated with the DPI and Accredited with the ECOSOC of the UN

Director of the LERC

Guita G. Hourani, MA, MURP, PhD Candidate

Ms. Guita G. Hourani (MA, MURP, PhD Candidate) is the Director of the Lebanese Emigration Research Center (LERC) at Notre Dame University-Louaizé, Lebanon. Ms. Hourani has a master’s degree in History and another master’s in Urban and Regional Planning; she is currently a PhD candidate at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies in Japan. Ms. Hourani is currently member of the Migration Expert Committee of the Directorate of Migrants at the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a member of the UNDP National Academic Working Group on Migration in Lebanon. She was an expert on migration for the Maronite Patriarchal Synod from 2003-2006. Ms. Hourani was an international development consultant at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. where she worked on development projects for Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East as well as a trainer of trainers at the International Institute for Development. Ms. Hourani pioneered a course on the role of women in war, peace and conflict resolution and taught it at several universities and institutions in the USA. She is a Fellow of the Civic Education and Leadership Fellowship program (CELF) a

Middle East Partnership Initiative program at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of Syracuse University and a Fellow at the Orientalisches Seminar (The Institute for Islamic Studies), Universität zu Köln (University of Cologne), Germany.   
Ms. Hourani has conducted research in over 27 countries and given lectures and papers in more than 20 countries. Her most reputable publications are The Impact of the Summer 2006 War on Migration in Lebanon: Emigration, Re-Migration, Evacuation, and Returning and the co-authored report with Dr. Eugene Sensenig-Dabbous and published by the Euro-Mediterranean Consortium for Applied Research on International Migration (CARIM) entitled Insecurity, Migration and Return: the Case of Lebanon Following the Summer 2006 War. Her recent publications include: Naturalized Citizens: Political Participation, Voting Behavior, and Impact on Elections in Lebanon (1996-2007), co-authored with Eugene Sensenig-Dabbous, The Journal of International Migration and Integration(JIMI) (August 2011); The Global Financial Crisis: Impact on Lebanese Expatriates in The Gulf, The Center for Migration and Refugee Studies (CMRS), American University of Cairo, (May 2011); Diaspora and E-Commerce: The Globalization of Lebanese Baklava, the Palma Journal, Notre Dame University Press, (October 2009); Lebanese Diaspora and Homeland Relations, published by the Center on Migration and Refugee Studies, The American University of Cairo, (2008); Lebanon’s Emigration Integration Policy, published by the Euro-Mediterranean Consortium for Applied Research on International Migration (CARIM), (2006). Her current research projects are concerned with i) Out-of-Country Voting in Post-War Societies: The Case of Lebanon in cooperation with Dr. Eugene Sensenig-Dabbous; ii) The Syrian Refugees in Lebanon; iii) Homeland Political Parties and their Networks and Mobilization of the Diaspora; and iv) The Impact of Naturalization on the Socioeconomic Mobility and Political Participation of the Kurds in Lebanon. 
ghourani@ndu.edu.lb 

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