PhD
PhD Thesis Title: Queering Debt: A Study of Relational Finance in Lebanon (working title)
PhD Supervisor: Kristen Mcneill
Following economic sociological thought, this PhD research interrogates how the flow of debt – a form of neoliberal governmentality– within Lebanon’s LGBTQ+ community is mediated by relational, non-normative bonds. Positioned within the broader context of Lebanon’s enduring financial collapse, this dissertation explores debt as both a material and relational phenomenon, one that embodies and disrupts the entanglements of neoliberal marketization, sectarian governance, and heteronormative structures of social and economic control.
It asks: How is the "debt work" performed by Lebanon’s LGBTQ+ community—negotiated through intimate and non-normative bonds— unfolding today along the lines of sexuality, sect, race and class? How does this “labor” challenge and reconfigure the relational and affective dimensions of contemporary neoliberal capitalism in Lebanon? What story does this tell about the continuum of crises defining Lebanon’s collapse?
By centering queer relationality as an understudied yet vital site of financial negotiation, this research interrogates a “sociology of finance” that focuses primarily on family-based obligations or formal economic systems.
Profile
Hossein Cheaito is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. Hossein holds an MSc in Development Economics from the University of Sussex and a BA in Economics from the American University of Beirut. He is an alumnus of the Joint UK Chevening-Said Foundation scholarship program. He is also part of the International Association for Feminist Economics and a member of its MENA committee.
Prior to coming to Geneva, Hossein was also a nonresident fellow in Development Economics at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP), a Washington-based policy think tank. In this role, he conducted in-depth research on economic development and crisis responses in the MENA region, producing analyses on fiscal policy, debt justice, austerity, social protection, and (queer) political economy. At The Policy Initiative, a Beirut-based think tank, Hossein also worked across the fields of local public finance, economic development, and labor economics, where he helped construct Lebanon’s first local economic growth diagnostics framework. He additionally co-led a project on Lebanon’s gig economy with the University of Oxford’s Internet Institute under the Fairwork project. As a lead researcher with Helem, the MENA region’s first LGBTQ+ organization, Hossein conducted Lebanon’s first comprehensive study on the socio-economic impact of LGBTQ+ discrimination in Lebanon. As a consultant, Hossein has also critically engaged with International Monetary Fund (IMF) policies in Lebanon and the wider MENA region. Representing Lebanon at the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Washington DC, he spoke on (and moderated) panels addressing the socio-economic impacts of structural adjustment programs, analyzing the distributional effects of those and advocating for feminist economic alternatives.
He has also participated in numerous high-profile panels and workshops on topics including the IMF and social welfare, Queer Economies in the global south, LGBTQ+ socio-economic inequality, economic recovery, political economy, engaging with policymakers, academics, and civil society leaders regionally and globally. His scholarly and policy work has been featured in various academic and non-academic platforms, with forthcoming work in Feminist Economics among others. Hossein’s insights have also been sought by media outlets including BBC, Al Jazeera, DW News, The New Arab, Reuters, The World podcast, L'Orient-Le Jour, Liberation, among others.
Research Interests
- Relational economic sociology,
- Neoliberalism
- Queer marxism
- Feminist political economy
- Queer political economy, debt, finance
Publications and Works
- Cheaito, H (2022) “Thinking Queerly about Lebanon’s Mega-Crises” https://timep.org/2022/06/30/thinking-queerly-about-lebanons-mega-crises/
- Cheaito, H et (2022). “The IMF in MENA: Flawed Approaches, New Challenges.” https://timep.org/2023/04/14/the-imf-in-mena-flawed-approaches-new-challenges/
- Cheaito, H (2022). “Lebanon’s $3 Billion IMF Deal and the Art of Illusory Reform.” https://timep.org/2022/10/12/lebanons-3-billion-imf-deal-and-the-art-of-illusory-reform/
- Cheaito, H (2022). “Unleashing Queer Economic Liberation in Lebanon.” https://al-rawiya.com/unleashing-queer-economic-liberation-in-lebanon/
- Cheaito, H et al. (2022). “Tourism and remittances are not a panacea for Lebanon's financial woes.” https://www.thepolicyinitiative.org/article/details/177/tourism-and-rem…- lebanons-financial-woes
- Cheaito, H (2023). “Local governance in Lebanon: The Great Mirage” https://timep.org/2023/05/18/local-governance-in-lebanon-the-great-mirage/
- Cheaito, H (2023) “Capital, power, and sexuality in Lebanon: Building an economic case for LGBTQ+ inclusion” Helem Lebanon
- Cheaito, H (2023) “The IMF’s lazy economics won’t save MENA” Arab Watch Coalition.
- Cheaito, H., & Khneisser, M. (2024). “Queering Debt: Towards A Queer Political Economy of Lebanon’s Financial Collapse.” In M. V. Lee Badgett, J. Heintz, & S. P. Shah (Guest Eds.), LGBTQ+ Special Issue in Feminist Economics. (forthcoming)
- Cheaito, H., & Delatolla, A. (2024). Lebanon's Global LGBTIQ+ Engagements: Between Representation and Neoliberalism. In S. Atshan (Ed., Emory University), P. Ayoub (Ed., University College London), & J. Clark (Ed., University of Toronto), Queer Organizing in the ‘Periphery’: A South-Centric Perspective. (forthcoming)