Mariam Ben Slama

Mariam Ben Slama is a Tunisian researcher pursuing a PhD in political science at Johns Hopkins University, after completing her bachelor's and master's degrees at Sciences Po in Reims and Paris respectively. Her work examines the colonial legacies of policing and state violence in North Africa, with a focus on how violence is distributed between Tunisia’s coastal and interior regions as well as the sociological configuration of the institution itself. Previously, she explored border-making and border-breaking as resistance in both physical and virtual spaces in Palestine, as well as the intersection of Palestinian nationalism, land rights, and cultural remembrance. Mariam also works on topics related to anti-colonial and postcolonial political theory including Indigenous thought. Beyond academia, she likes to write poetry where she dissects feelings of confusion, grief, and existential nostalgia when in contact with dynamics of everyday imperialism.