María González Flores is a predoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Sociology at the Universidade da Coruña as part of the national FPU programme. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the Universidad de Salamanca and a Master’s Degree in International Relations and African Studies from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.

María is writing her PhD thesis on the tensions and intersections present within humanitarianism as a depoliticising, demobilising agent among refugee communities in the WANA (West Asia & North Africa) region and the role of women in the strategies of anticolonial resistance waged in response. In order to obtain a more in-depth understanding of the realities of the region and improve her language skills in Arabic and Farsi, she has travelled and spent time in countries such as Iran, Egypt and Morocco in recent years, where she combined academic work with personal experiences and fieldwork with different organisations. Her aim is to conduct ethical, respectful, activist research and to incorporate a feminist, decolonial, subaltern perspective as a key component of her approach as a researcher.

maria.gflores@udc.gal