Spotlight: Samantha Borders, S-CAR PhD Student
Samantha Borders is an incoming 2015 doctoral student who has spent time working in Israel-Palestine as a development officer at Project Hope Nablus. Samantha returned to the U.S. in 2014 and established an online religious magazine called PourOver that focuses primarily on faith narratives for the subaltern. Following a year of teaching and participation in grassroots initiatives in southeast Georgia, Samantha chose to go back to school to enhance her understanding of religion’s relation to conflict. “I chose this period to further my education at S-CAR because the program was a better fit for my research needs. I am very research-oriented and I want to use that to create new knowledge that can effect positive change and make it accessible to everyone. The best place it seems to do that is at Mason with its proximity to Washington D.C. - the hub of policy making” she said.
Samantha is a graduate of the University of Exeter, where she received a Master of Arts (MA) in Palestine Studies. After graduating with distinction in the program, she moved to Israel-Palestine. “I wanted to have hands on experience regarding the realities of Israel-Palestine so I spent time working with a grassroots NGO that was geared towards providing educational opportunities to children affected by the Second Intifada in Nablus. In addition to her work, Samantha also worked as a freelance journalist where she wrote about grassroots activism and religious minorities issues in the region.
Samantha is currently looking to pursue research that primarily focuses on the construction of historical narratives in relation to Christianity’s connection with the modern Middle East. She wants to promote conflict resolution through deeper understanding of the religious subaltern voices at play and their integral position in the peacemaking process. Acording to Samantha, “Because of my deep understanding of the Church and Zionism, I felt compelled to research about Palestinian Christians- a subject seldom discussed in Western discourse.
Outside of academics, Samantha writes and performs poetry. “I love poetry because it gives me the space to express emotions that prose cannot."
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