Dr. Davis’ research is on refugees, war, and conflict, particularly Syrian and Iraqi refugees and internally displaced persons. Since 2010, her research projects have included training refugees and local community members to develop questions and conduct interviews. To date, these projects have amassed over 300 in-depth interviews with refugees and migrants in the region. (see publications below)

She also is also a Senior Researcher on a joint project between Georgetown University and the International Organization for Migration grant conducting a mixed-methods panel survey of over 3000 Iraqi households displaced since 2014 by ISIS/ISIL/Da’esh. https://ccas.georgetown.edu/resources/iom-gu-iraq-idp-study/ and see also http://iraqrecovery.org/durablesolutions/

Her first book, Palestinian Village Histories: Geographies of the Displaced, (Stanford University Press, 2012) was co-winner of the Middle East Studies Association’s Albert Hourani Book Award recognizing outstanding publications in Middle East studies. The book addresses how Palestinian refugees today write histories of their villages that were destroyed in the 1948 war, and the stories and commemorations of village life that are circulated in the diaspora.

Professor Davis is currently writing a book on the role of culture in the U.S. military wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, based on research she has conducted since 2006. Using interviews with US military servicemembers and Iraqis, as well as governmental and military policy and strategy documents, cultural training material, journalists’ reporting, and soldier memoirs, she focuses on the narratives about Iraqis, Afghans, Arabs, and Muslims. Her analysis explicates the conundrums of being being tasked to be culturally sensitive in a military occupation, and the personal and collective experiences of war.

Her teaching interests include Arab society and culture; refugees, migrants and immigrants in and out of the Arab World; and war and conflict. She uses different genres of texts and other forms of media in her classroom to expose students to the wide range of material – both primary and secondary – about the Arab World. Her syllabi include ethnographies, autobiographies, scholarly books and articles from different disciplines, blogs, cartoons, films, novels, poetry, and media. Classroom work has included being part of the Wikimedia Foundation Public Policy Project, curating poster exhibits using the Palestine Poster Project Archive, and writing and publishing editorials. She also works closely with student research assistants and has co-published a number of articles with them.