Dania Berkoti

Research Interests: Refugee Identity and Displacement, Intersectionality in Human Rights, Representation and Agency of Muslim Women

Dania Berkoti is a Master’s student in Human Rights and Social Justice at Carleton University and a teaching assistant in her field. Originally from Kurdistan, Dania’s research focuses on the complexities of identity, displacement, and the ways that human rights frameworks can impose restrictive roles on refugees. She draws from her experiences as a Kurdish-Canadian woman navigating intersecting identities and is interested in challenging dominant narratives that often reduce individuals to simplified labels like “savage,” “victim,” or “savior.” Her work is dedicated to amplifying marginalized voices and emphasizing community-building as a means to foster belonging and purpose.

Dania’s research critically examines how human rights frameworks, often rooted in colonial ideologies, assign fixed roles to displaced individuals that serve Western perspectives. She uses Mutua’s “Savage-Victim-Savior” framework as a foundation to analyze how Kurdish women, particularly those who are Muslim, are often marginalized and portrayed through reductive labels in both Middle Eastern and Western contexts. This framework allows her to unpack the layered identities that Kurdish women must navigate—perceived as “savages” in Middle Eastern settings due to their indigenous Kurdish identity, cast as “victims” in Western discourse due to assumptions about being a Muslim Woman,  and positioned as “saviors” when they are seen advocating for human rights from a Western standpoint.

Through her research, Dania addresses how these imposed roles prevent a full understanding of refugee experiences and perpetuate narratives that can isolate displaced people from belonging and being. She emphasizes, her displacement never began when she moved to Canada in November 2016 rather the very identities that she was born into never had a “homeland” to begin with. She advocates for reframing human rights in ways that move beyond simplified labels, focusing instead on community-building as a form of resistance. For Dania, community represents both a form of resistance and a redefined “homeland,” where belonging and purpose are forged in shared experiences rather than assigned roles. She chose Carleton University’s program for its interdisciplinary approach and the faculty’s dedication to exploring critical human rights issues, which aligns closely with her goals of challenging existing narratives and advocating for a more inclusive human rights model that respects the agency of marginalized voices.

Additional Information

• Recognition: Dean’s List all four years during her undergraduate studies
• Featured In: Carleton’s 2025 View Book as the face of Human Rights and Social Justice and on the Admissions page of Human Rights and Social Justice in Carleton University.