Eibhlin Priestley

Eibhlin Priestley is a History PhD Candidate at Murray Edwards College. Her research is supervised by Professor Andrew Arsan and supported by a Cambridge Trust scholarship.

Positioned at the intersection of Middle East migration history and global history, this PhD project documents the underexplored social and economic histories of the ‘Syrians of Sudan’ (from present-day Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine) 1950-1983. This study traces the shifting status, fortunes, and lifeworlds of this mercantile community, settled in centres across Sudan since the late 1800s, as it reconstituted itself in Khartoum in the 1950s. It tracks how the ‘Syrians of Sudan’ experienced and adapted to the shifting post-colonial context, culminating in the exodus of hundreds of families to Australia, Europe, and the US as a result of political and economic factors in the 1970s and 1980s. 

Oral history interviews with second, third or fourth generations of families, conducted during fieldwork in Beirut, Khartoum, Sydney, and London, and family archival collections, form the core of her primary material. She also draws on business and banking documents, photos, court reports, colonial records, memoirs, and letters from national and institutional archives. The contemporary relevance of this project and necessity to record this community history is greater than ever given the community’s sudden and wholesale departure from Sudan following the outbreak of the war in April 2023 and the destruction of the cultural heritage left behind. This project seeks to create a record of the experiences and perspectives of the ‘Syrians of Sudan’ and recognise their contribution to social and economic life throughout 20th century Sudan. 

Eibhlin completed an MA in Near and Middle Eastern Studies at SOAS and previously held roles in communications, research and education for the European University Institute, the British Council, the Arab Studies Institute, and the University of Sussex. Since 2022 she has been Education Officer for the Balfour Project where she oversees the development of educational resources on Palestinian history and the workshop programme for schools.