Skip to main content
  • Information for
    • Students
    • Alumni & Friends
    • Faculty
    • Staff
    • Community
  • QUICK LINKS
  • DIRECTORY
  • APPLY
  • GIVE
  • RENT
Hunter College
About
  • Overview
  • Mission
  • Strategic Plan
  • Accreditation
  • Fast Facts
  • Office of the President
  • Capital Projects & Planning
  • Sustainability
  • Campus Information
  • Contact Us
Academics
  • Approach
  • Provost
  • Schools
  • Departments & Programs
  • Majors
  • Honors & Scholars
  • Education Abroad
  • Advising
  • Research & Creative Works
  • Course Catalogs
Admissions
  • Overview
  • Undergraduate
  • Graduate
  • Course Catalogs
Student Life
  • Clubs & Organizations
  • Residence Life
  • Athletics
  • Dining On Campus
  • Community
  • Events
  • News
  • Libraries
Hunter College Schools
  • School of Arts & Sciences
  • School of Education
  • School of Health Professions
  • Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing
  • Silberman School of Social Work
More Schools
  • Hunter College Campus Schools
  • Hunter College Continuing Education
  • Libraries
  • Students
  • Alumni & Friends
  • Faculty
  • Staff
  • Community
  • Events
  • News
  • APPLY
  • GIVE
  • RENT
  • QUICK LINKS
  • DIRECTORY
News / Communications News Archive /

Hunter Sociology Prof Wins Award for Book on Refugees

July 8, 2024
Share
Heba Gowayed

Heba Gowayed, an associate professor of Sociology at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center, studies the lives of people who migrate across borders and the unequal and often violent treatment they face. Her 2022 book, Refuge: How the State Shapes Human Potential, which earned the 2024 Mirra Komarovsky Book Award from the Eastern Sociological Society, recently won the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award from the Racial and Ethnic Minorities section of the American Sociological Association.

The following interview was conducted by the Graduate Center.

What does it mean to you to win this award? 

Gowayed: Refuge is a book about displaced Syrians building new lives in wealthy countries that have offered them resettlement or asylum. This award is meaningful not only because it is a national award voted upon by my peers, but also because it recognizes the book's contribution to the study of race, an enduring American inequality. The people in the book who are Arab and Muslim are part of a racialized minority increasingly vilified in public discourse, and whose lives whether domestically or internationally (as we’re seeing in the current genocide of Palestinians) are deemed expendable. By giving me this award, my professional organization is recognizing the humanity of the people in the book, and in doing so pushing back against their marginalization.

Why did you write this book?

Gowayed: I wrote this book because I wanted to tell a story about this racialized minority who were displaced by a horrific war that centered them as people first and foremost. I wanted the reader to leave the book identifying with the people within it. To do so, I write about how they understand their own displacement and migration process, and how they make sense of their mobility in an unequal world.

What do you want readers to know about this book?

Gowayed: I want readers to be able to recognize that the same systems that disenfranchise new arrivals to their country are the ones used to deny people who are here opportunities. Though our politicians attempt to pit “natives” against “immigrants’ or “refugees,” people in need are denied through our country’s abdication of responsibility toward the poor, which is rooted historically in both anti-Black and anti-immigrant sentiment.

How does this book relate to your scholarship or teaching?

Gowayed: I study borders and displacement, and I teach courses on these topics. Here at CUNY, I am proud to teach students, many of whom also come from immigrant backgrounds, and who are trying to make sense of these very same inequalities of legal status, race, and place. At the GC I am continuing to write on borders, colonialism, and displacement, with the support of our tremendous students and colleagues!

What advice would you offer to aspiring authors in academia?

Gowayed: It’s so easy when we pick up a book to forget that there is a long and often messy process to get to a finished product. The pathway of each book is different, but I often find that for new authors the biggest obstacle is believing in your own voice and sitting down and committing that voice to paper. Especially for authors from minoritized groups, who are underrepresented in academic work, and likely to be under-supported, the self-doubt can be paralyzing. But I want to remind those authors in particular that their life experiences, and what those experiences allow them to see of our social world, can be transformative. So, sit down and write! (Which is advice I often need to repeat to myself.)

What’s next for you?

Gowayed: I am working on my second book, The Cost of Borders, where I argue that borders, rather than markers of sovereign territory, are marketplaces comprising always costly, and often deadly, transactions. Moving from Lesbos to Gaza to Tijuana, the project shows how the costs of borders, patterned by inequalities of racism, sexism, and disability, fluctuate over time and space, and differ depending on who is attempting to cross.

PreviousNext

Office of Communications
for media information and more
student watching online event
Hunter on Demand

Enjoy virtual lectures, discussions and readings by members of Hunter’s distinguished faculty.

Join Us

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Flickr

NEWS SPOTLIGHT

May 9, 2025
Jody Gottfried Arnhold: Mother of Dance at Hunter

Often called the “doyenne of dance,” Jody Arnhold is an international luminary of dance advocacy and education.

May 5, 2025
Hunter School of Education Hosts Playgroup for Local Families

Hunter College’s School of Education has launched a playgroup for infants and toddlers and their families that helps special-needs children.

See All Spotlight News

EVENTS CALENDAR

May 9, 2025
Hunter MFA Playwrights Festival

The Hunter MFA Playwrights Festival features staged readings of new full-length works by Hunter’s 2025 graduating class: Mo Alani, Brandon Bogle, ...

May 14, 2025
Afterlives of San Juan Hill: Lincoln Square/ San Juan Hill Exhibition

In 1958, an emerging Puerto Rican community was displaced from the Lincoln Square and San Juan Hill neighborhoods to make way for the ...

See All Featured Events

HUNTER

Hunter College
695 Park Ave NY, NY 10065
(212) 772-4000

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Flickr
  • ABOUT
  • ACADEMICS
  • ADMISSIONS
  • EVENTS
  • NEWS
Hunter College Schools
  • School of Arts & Sciences
  • School of Education
  • School of Health Professions
  • Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing
  • Silberman School of Social Work
  • School of Arts & Sciences
  • School of Education
  • School of Health Professions
  • Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing
  • Silberman School of Social Work
Our Other Schools
  • Hunter College Campus Schools
  • Hunter College Continuing Education
  • Hunter College Campus Schools
  • Hunter College Continuing Education
Hunter College Libraries
More Info
  • Bookstore
  • Contact Us & Feedback
  • Jobs
  • Public Safety
  • Roosevelt House
  • Student Housing
  • Space Rentals
  • Bookstore
  • Contact Us & Feedback
  • Jobs
  • Public Safety
  • Roosevelt House
  • Student Housing
  • Space Rentals
Public Information
  • Annual Security & Fire Safety Report
  • Consumer Information
  • CUNY Tobacco Policy
  • Enough is Enough
  • Focus on Campus
  • Annual Security & Fire Safety Report
  • Consumer Information
  • CUNY Tobacco Policy
  • Enough is Enough
  • Focus on Campus
CUNY
  • © 2025 Hunter College
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Terms