In memoriam: Professor Annabelle Sreberny
It is with great sorrow that I announce and mourn the untimely passing away of an esteemed, much admired and loved colleague, mentor, teacher, friend and inspirational role model, Professor Annabelle Sreberny.
It is difficult and humbling to write a fitting and comprehensive tribute to Annabelle, who, along with Professor Mark Hobart, were the intellectual force behind the Centre for Media and Film Studies at SOAS, the first centre in the UK to critique Western-centric communication and media theory and contribute to de-colonial media theorization through grounded empirical study of Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Annabelle joined SOAS as Visiting Professor in 2004 from the University of Leicester where she was the Director of the Centre for Mass Communication Research from 1992-1999, and its only professor. She took up the first chair in Global Media and Communications at SOAS in 2006. An avid internationalist, Annabelle’s work focused on International Communication and Globalization with a strong feminist orientation. In July 2008 Annabelle was elected president of IAMCR for four years. She was an Associate Member of the UNESCO ORBICOM Network and an elected member of the Royal Society of Arts since 2001. Annabelle retired from SOAS in September 2015.
Annabelle founded the MA Global Media and Communication at SOAS, supported the launch of other programmes and an expanding PhD cohort. Her teaching was legendary in terms of style, intellect, and vitality, a reflection of her personality and joie de vivre. Her research, too, was lively and inclusive, not only in terms of its avant-garde interdisciplinary focus, but also in terms of who she studied (the marginalised and oppressed) and with which tools and methods. Her training in psychodynamic counselling led her to explore the linkages between macro processes and micro experiences and experiment with different ways of writing, including auto-ethnography.
Her research was informed by her absolute commitment to equality and social justice, focusing on media and processes of socio-political change and democratization in the Global South, with particular emphasis on the Middle East and Iran. Her research on Iranian small media at the beginning of the Islamic revolution in Iran is a classical seminal work that till today inspires scholars across the globe. Her work on Iran continued through an ESRC-funded project that allowed her to focus on the nature of Iranian community and media formations in London as part of her interest in diasporic communities and transnational media and her larger focus on issues around race, ethnicity and the media. Her active involvement in supporting emerging women’s movements in Iran and elsewhere, as well as other marginal communities and oppressed people, saw her take part in activism on the street and in social media, reminding us of the necessary role intellectuals must play in support of social justice and rights.
Annabelle’s work and life were inspired by her lifelong interest in speaking truth to power, support of processes of empowerment and democratization, particularly as experienced by women and minority/diasporic communities. Her interest in communications and social movements has had an international focus, with a specific focus on the dynamics of global feminist politics, solidarity and participation, particularly in the digital age. Her contribution to international and internationalising media and communication scholar is unique as is her work in discourses around globalization and culture, especially as articulated by non-Western states and populations. Without doubt, her premature passing away leaves me and the academe much poorer.
We offer our sincerest condolences to her family and friends.
Rest in power Annabelle.
Dina Matar, Director, Centre for Global Media and Communication.
Read Narguess Farzad's (Chair of Centre for Iranian Studies) tribute to Annabelle.
