Dr Hyab Yohannes

Research Fellow (School of Education)

Advanced Research Centre (ARC), 11 Chapel Ln, Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom, G11 6EW

Biography

Hyab Yohannes is a Lecturer in Forced Migration and Decolonial Education with the UNESCO Chair RIELA at the University of Glasgow. He conducts research and synthesises findings to address theoretical, methodological, and policy-related questions. Recently, Hyab co-edited a Special Issue on Intercultural Knowledge Production for the Journal of Language and Intercultural Communication, and a book titled Cultures of Sustainable Peace for Multilingual Matters. His book, The Refugee Abyss, was published by Routledge in August 2025 to critical acclaim. Hyab’s research interests include poetics, decoloniality, and political theories across physical, onto-epistemic, spatio-temporal, and juridico-political dimensions.

Research interests

My research interests unfold through three interconnected strands.

1. Naming the abyss

Naming the Abyss develops conceptual and empirical language for the existential, political, and onto-epistemic conditions produced by forced displacement, attending to what exceeds prevailing categories of refuge, citizenship, and humanity.

2. Inoperative resistance

Inoperative resistance examines how violent epistemic and political orders may be rendered inoperative rather than merely opposed. Beyond concealment or refusal, it explores opacity as an ethical and political practice that suspends the demand for transparency, exposing the absurdity of nakedness before power while deactivating the mechanisms through which life is made legible, governable, and violable. In this movement, resistance emerges not through opposition alone but through the destitution of violence itself, preserving irreducibility without foreclosing encounter and allowing dignity, knowledge, and coexistence to appear beyond capture or translation.

3. Relation

Relation advances a relational ontology of being in common, reimagining peacebuilding and political life through reciprocity, mutual obligation, and respect for opacity against totalising notions of sameness and universality.

Across these strands, my work seeks to reorient forced migration studies, political theory, and peace studies beyond necropolitical governance towards justice, restorative knowledge, and relational ways of inhabiting the world together.

Publications

List by: Type | Date

Jump to: 2026 | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018

Number of items: 70.

2026

Yohannes, Hyab Teklehaimanot ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2026) Beyond arrival: towards relation. World Voices Nexus: The WCCES Chronicle, 10(3),

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2026) Poetics of Vulnerability. Accounting and Vulnerability, Hamburg, Germany, 14-15 Sep 2026.

Yemane, Tesfalem Habte and Yohannes, Hyab Teklehaimanot ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2026) State as refugee trafficker? Reflections from the margins. In: Elliott, Sarah and Smith, Megan Denise (eds.) Disrupting Anti-Trafficking Norms: Survivors, Practitioners and the Future of Global Interventions. Policy Press, pp. 214-244. ISBN 9781447377740 (doi: 10.51952/9781447377740.ch008)

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2026) Foreword. In: The Blin People: At the Crossroads of Land, Faith and Identity in Eritrea [by Fitsum A. H. Dekin]. Fitsum A. H. Dekin. ISBN 9789153196310

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2026) Between roots, rivers, lands and people. In: Diamond, Piki, Sitholé, Tawona and Phipps, Alison (eds.) Exploring Restorative Intercultural Practices: Fire Stories. Multilingual Matters, pp. 62-72. ISBN 9781836680765

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2026) 'Does the world know we exist?': Cries From Within 'The Refugee Abyss'. Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies (CERS), University of Leeds Event, Leeds, UK, 26 Mar 2026.

Phipps, A. et al. (2026) Multilingualism and New Scots Refugee Integration. Project Report. University of Glasgow.

2025

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2025) The Right of the Rightless. Human Rights Day 2025: Migration Beyond Narratives of Fear and Crisis, Stirling, Scotland, 10 Dec 2025.

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 and Piacentini, Teresa ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9180-7752 (2025) Beyond the Border: Poetics of Refuge and Critical Classroom Praxis. [Audio]

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2025) Breathing-writing from within the abyss [blog post]. [Website]

Yemane, Tesfalem Habte, Zerezghi, Habtat and Yohannes, Hyab Teklehaimanot ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2025) Poetics of music and exile in postliberation Eritrea. In: Cathcart Frödén, Lucy, Herrity, Kate and Mangaoang, Áine (eds.) Sound and Detention: Towards Critical Listening, Sonic Citizenship and Social Justice. Bloomsbury Publishing, pp. 239-256. ISBN 9798765114018 (doi: 10.5040/9798765114018.ch-019)

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2025) The Refugee Abyss. Curious Festival of Knowledge, Edinburgh, Scotland, 06-14 Sep 2025.

Fatehrad, Azadeh, Natalini, Davide, Yohannes, Hyab Teklehaimanot ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 and Palombo, Gianluca (2025) The role of nature in migrant integration: an eco-social perspective. Urban Forestry and Urban Greening, 111, 128837. (doi: 10.1016/j.ufug.2025.128837)

Yohannes, Hyab Teklehaimanot ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2025) The Refugee Abyss. Series: Routledge studies in criminal justice, borders and citizenship. Routledge: London. ISBN 9781032567945 (doi: 10.4324/9781003437192)

Yohannes, Hyab Teklehaimanot ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 and Phipps, Alison ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5958-1207 (2025) Restorative integration as a decolonial praxis: on love and rage. In: Aldegheri, Esa, Fisher, Dan and Phipps, Alison (eds.) A Handbook of Integration with Refugees. Channel View Publications, pp. 21-38. ISBN 9781800418981 (doi: 10.2307/jj.29308405.8)

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2025) Reflection. Voices of Resilience: United Nations Global Forum for Human Trafficking Survivors, Vienna, Austria, 24-25 June 2025.

Phipps, Alison ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5958-1207, Sithole, Tawona and Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2025) Language gardens: returning to the poetics found in the linguistic diversity of the land. Journal of Education for Multilingualism, 2(1), pp. 27-51.

Fatehrad, Azadeh, Natalinni, Davide, Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 and Palombo, Gianluca (2025) Diaspora space and nature-based integration. In: Karunaratne, Gihan (ed.) Displaced Urbanism. Series: Routledge research in planning and urban design. Routledge. ISBN 9781032748283 (In Press)

Bagula, Donat, Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 and Pommier, Maud (2025) Engaging Survivors in Policy Framework Development. 2025 Europe Regional Freedom From Slavery Forum, Brussels, Belgium, 05-07 May 2025.

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605, Qadri, Mustafa, Bonertz, Fabian, Bagula, Donat and Hoff, Suzanne (2025) Strategies for Sustaining Current Funding Landscape to Address Forced Labour, Child Labour; and Trafficking in Persons. 2025 Europe Regional Freedom From Slavery Forum, Brussels, Belgium, 05-07 May 2025.

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605, Pommier, Maud, Omoruyi, Juliet, Qadri, Mustafa and Ewart-James, Joanna (2025) Engaging Survivors in Addressing Forced Labour and Child Labour. 2025 Europe Regional Freedom From Slavery Forum, Brussels, Belgium, 05-07 May 2025.

Zafar, Faiza and Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2025) Best Practices in Research on Modern Slavery and Trafficking. 2025 Europe Regional Freedom From Slavery Forum, Brussels, Belgium, 05-07 May 2025.

Natalini, Davide, Fatehrad, Azadeh, Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 and Palombo, Gianluca (2025) Evidence for Women and Equalities Committee’s on Community Cohesion. Documentation. UK Parliament.

2024

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2024) Autobiographic Reflections on Loss, Longing, and Recovery. [Website]

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 and Yemane, Tesfalem (2024) Controversies in qualitative research. [Audio]

Yohannes, Hyab Teklehaimanot ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605, Phipps, Alison ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5958-1207 and Sitholé, Tawona (Eds.) (2024) Cultures of Sustainable Peace: Conflict Transformation, Gender-Based Violence, Decolonial Praxes. Multilingual Matters: Bristol • Jackson. ISBN 9781800418349

Yohannes, Hyab Teklehaimanot ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2024) Autobiographic reflections on loss, longing, and recovery. In: Bosworth, Mary, Franko, Katja, Lee, Maggy and Mehta, Rimple (eds.) Handbook on Border Criminology. Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 311-327. ISBN 9781035307975 (doi: 10.4337/9781035307982.00031)

Yohannes, Hyab Teklehaimanot ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2024) Decolonial Mourning and the Caring Commons: Migration-Coloniality Necropolitics and Conviviality Infrastructure By Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez. London, UK: Anthem Press, 2023. x + 251pp. £25.00/US$35.00. ISBN: 9781839988783. Journal of Refugee Studies, (doi: 10.1093/jrs/feae071)[Book Review] (Early Online Publication)

Albtran, A. et al. (2024) Correction to: Building an ethical research culture: Scholars of refugee background researching refugee-related issues. Journal of Refugee Studies, 37(3), p. 835. (doi: 10.1093/jrs/feae053)

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2024) Open Wounds. 21st IMISCOE Annual Conference, Lisbon, Portugal ; Online, 02-05 July 2024.

Johnston, Margot Leys and Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2024) Reimagining the Refugee Condition. [Audio]

Fatehrad, A., Natalini, D., Yohannes, H. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 and Palombo, G. (2024) Nature-Based Integration Policy and Practice Toolkit. Documentation. Nuffield Foundation.

Fatehrad, Azadeh, Natalini, Davide, Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 and Palombo, Gianluca (2024) Nature-based Integration: Connecting Communities with/in Nature. Project Report. Nuffield Foundation.

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 and Aksu, Pinar ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-9203-7308 (2024) A Story Growing from Traces. [Website]

Albtran, A. et al. (2024) Building an ethical research culture: Scholars of refugee background researching refugee-related issues. Journal of Refugee Studies, (doi: 10.1093/jrs/feae005)

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2024) (B)ordering – Insights from Films. [Website]

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2024) Weaving a New World. [Website]

Yohannes, Hyab Teklehaimanot ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605, Yemane, Tesfalem Habte and Wangari-Jones, Peninah (2024) The hostile environment, Covid-19, and the creation of asylum colonies in the UK. In: Bhambra, Gurminder K., Mayblin, Lucy, Medien, Kathryn and Viveros-Vigoya, Mara (eds.) The Sage Handbook of Global Sociology. SAGE Publications Ltd. ISBN 9781529772128

2023

Yohannes, Hyab T. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 and Phipps, Alison ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5958-1207 (2023) What does it mean to move? Joy and resistance through cultural work in South-South migration. In: Crawley, Heaven and Teye, Joseph Kofi (eds.) The Palgrave Handbook of South-South Migration and Inequality. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 125-149. ISBN 9783031398131 (doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-39814-8_7)

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605, Phipps, Alison ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5958-1207, Fernandes, Fernando and Silva, Jailson (2023) Intercultural knowledge production: against gender-based violence and towards epistemic justice. Language and Intercultural Communication, 23(6), pp. 501-506. (doi: 10.1080/14708477.2023.2270878)

Palombo, Gianluca, Dakessian, Arek and Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2023) Reframing Migration & Rediscovering Our Humanity. [Audio]

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2023) The UK’s Necropolitics of Racialised (B)ordering. [Website]

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2023) Refugee Trafficking. 20th IMISCOE Annual Conference, Warsaw, Poland ; Online, 03-06 July 2023.

Yohannes, Hyab Teklehaimanot ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2023) Refugees as questioning subjects: A critical reflection of PhD fieldwork involving refugees. Access: Critical Explorations of Equity in Higher Education, 10(2),

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 and Habte Yemane, Tesfalem (2023) ‘Experts by Experience’ What’s beyond the label? [Website]

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 and Zerezghi, Habtat (2023) The refugee condition: an existential question. [Website]

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2023) The Normalisation of Migrant Deaths and Its Implications for Humanity. [Website]

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2023) Standing Up for Human Dignity: A Joyful Challenge. [Website]

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 and Habte Yemane, Tesfalem (2023) ‘Use of intermediaries’ as Decolonisation: Part 2. [Website]

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 and Habte Yemane, Tesfalem (2023) ‘Use of intermediaries’ as Decolonisation: Part 1. [Website]

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2023) Reject the Summons of the “Illegal Immigration Bill”. [Website]

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2023) Eulogy for Tekie Alibekit 1949 - 2023. [Website]

Yohannes, Hyab Teklehaimanot ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2023) Refugee trafficking in a carceral age: a case study of the Sinai trafficking. Journal of Human Trafficking, 9(1), pp. 33-47. (doi: 10.1080/23322705.2021.1885005)

Yohannes, Hyab Teklehaimanot ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605, Phipps, Alison ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5958-1207, Fernandes, Fernando and Silva, Jailson (Eds.) (2023) Intercultural Knowledge Production: Against Gender-based Violence and Towards Epistemic Justice. Language and Intercultural Communication. 23(6) [Edited Journal]

2022

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2022) Reclaiming our humanity from the necropolitics of coloniality. [Website]

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 and Phipps, Alison ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5958-1207 (2022) The Border is a Colonial Wound: The Rwanda Deal and State Trafficking in People. [Website]

Yohannes, Hyab Teklehaimanot ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 and Tsegay, Samson Maekele (2022) Migration and mobility in youth (Eritrea). Bloomsbury Education and Childhood Studies, (doi: 10.5040/9781350887176.037)

2021

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2021) The humans whose humanity is forfeited. [Website]

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2021) It's our responsibility to welcome refugees - and redeem their stories. Insight Magazine, 1, Winter 2021-22.

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2021) It's our responsibility to welcome refugees - and redeem their stories. Insight: The Biannual Publication for Members of Children in Scotland, 2021-2(Winter), pp. 20-21.

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2021) "A trip to a Crannog". [Website]

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2021) Decolonising Asylum? [Website]

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2021) We are all refugees. [Website]

Mujaj, Edi, Nestorova, Petya, Roth, Venla, Lasocik, Zbigniew, Gruevska Graham, Melita and Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2021) Rethinking the Concept of Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Human Beings for the Purpose of Labour Exploitation. Competence Building, Assistance Provision and Prevention of Trafficking in Human Beings for Labour Exploitation, Online, 09 June 2021.

2020

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2020) ‘We are still burning’ – survivors of Beskdira and Ona massacre. [Website]

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2020) Blina Shama UK: Creating a Sanctuary after Home Loss. [Website]

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2020) Commentary. Language and Intercultural Communication, 20(2), pp. 213-217. (doi: 10.1080/14708477.2020.1722689)

2019

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2019) Modalities of Punishment and Control in Post-Liberation Eritrea. Neuchâtel Graduate Conference 2019, Neuchâtel, Switzerland, 12-13 Sep 2019.

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2019) Global Migration Conversations. AHRC-ESRC Migration Leadership Team Event, Glasgow, Scotland, 2019.

2018

Yohannes, Hyab ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4567-6605 (2018) ‘Born rightless, die rightless’. [Website]

This list was generated on Thu Oct 15 13:23:12 2026 BST.