News - Jun 10, 2008

Keegan de Lancie '08 Wins Fulbright to Study in Jordan

John Keegan de Lancie '08 was recently awarded a 2008 Fulbright Fellowship to study the state of affairs between Iraqi refugees in Jordan and the Jordanian host community.

As a Peace, War, and Defense and Arabic double-major, de Lancie has already had extensive exposure to Middle Eastern cultures. He spent his 2005-2006 school year in Cairo, Egypt, perfecting his Arabic and gaining new insights about the Arabic culture. Last summer, de Lancie's travels as a Morehead-Cain Scholar took him back to the Middle East (Turkey, Jordan, Israel/Palestine, and Egypt) to examine the effects of Crusader rhetoric in modern-day Islamist movements. He is currently writing an honors thesis on the subject and is in the final stages of completing a video documentary about Middle Eastern cultures. The documentary will be shown on the UNC campus and around the country, as well as distributed on the Internet.

While in Jordan, de Lancie will work with the Center for Strategic Studies and the International Rescue Committee to gain an understanding of the economic impact of and institutional responses to the influx of Iraqi refugees. De Lancie will also create another documentary film chronicling the experiences of three Iraqi families and three Jordanian families. He hopes to use the film "as a tool to explore each family's stories, hopes, and expectations for the future."

"I want to see how the two communities view the relationship between each other, and what they hope that relationship will be in the future," de Lancie said. He also hopes the film will help American audiences to understand the Iraqi immigration issue beyond news headlines.

After completing a year of research in Jordan, de Lancie plans to study international relations and conflict resolution in graduate school in preparation for further work in the Middle East.

"I want to work directly with the communities in which I'm living to promote effective communication and understanding. Improving my Arabic will allow me to work throughout the Arab world, and my ability to converse freely will hopefully break down barriers and stereotypes of Americans in the Middle East. While my project is tailored specifically to Jordan, the question of how different communities relate to each other is an important issue for the patchwork of peoples in the entire Middle East."

Established in 1946, the Fulbright Program promotes cultural awareness and understanding between the peoples of the United States and other countries through the exchange of persons, knowledge, and skills. Award recipients use the funding to undertake graduate study, advanced research, university teaching, and teaching in elementary and secondary schools.