Mae MacDonald

Graduate Student Research Funding | 2021 - 2022 Academic Year

Explaining Variation in Violence Against Women in Refugee Camps

Gender-based violence (GBV) is thought to be an unavoidable consequence of forced migration, particularly on refugee camps. However, there is significant variation in the prevalence and nature of GBV both across camps and within the same camp over time. This exploratory research aims to improve our understanding of the causes of this variation through elite interviews with government officials and aid workers in East Africa and Southeast Asia. The interviews will focus particularly on the effects of changes in the way that a camp is governed by the host state and international community.

Mae MacDonald, Department of Political Science

Mae MacDonald is a political science PhD student, Knight-Hennessy Scholar, and EDGE Fellow at Stanford University. Her research focuses on refugees, gender, and international organizations. MacDonald was previously a researcher at YouGov, where she conducted quantitative and qualitative research for the UK government and public sector organizations such as Amnesty International and Stonewall. She has experience volunteering in refugee camps in Europe, conducting think tank research on gender and welfare policy, working with Oxford-based biotechnology and renewable energy start-ups, and interning in the British Houses of Parliament. MacDonald graduated from the University of Oxford with a first-class bachelor’s degree in philosophy, politics and economics, where she was a Crankstart Scholar and Christ Church E. T. Warner Prize recipient.

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