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The Open Society Fellowship is designed to support individuals pursuing innovative and unconventional approaches to fundamental open society challenges.
Since 2008, the Open Society Fellowship has supported heterodox thinkers and practitioners from around the world. The fellowship helps elevate new voices to take part in global conversations on the most pressing issues of our time—from human rights and social justice to climate change and inequality—and provide established public intellectuals new audiences for their work. This year’s fellows will be chosen from selected areas, each home to a dynamic community of thinkers engaged in high-level critical debate.
We look forward to announcing the latest group of fellows in spring 2025.
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Year
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Adriana Paz Ramirez
2021Adriana Paz Ramirez, a labor rights organizer and popular educator, will research policy victories won by domestic workers in Latin America to understand how grassroots action can compel employers and states to obey the law. -
Boaventura Monjane
2021Boaventura Monjane, a journalist and scholar-activist, will research growing poverty, inequality, and the rollback of civil and political rights in Mozambique at a time when new development pathways are urgently needed. -
Nizar Hassan
2021Nizar Hassan, an organizer, producer, and political commentator, will create an online video platform for informative and accessible Arabic-language content that examines links between (in)equality, justice, and democracy. -
Ruth Castel-Branco
2021Ruth Castel-Branco will explore the relationship between land, labor, and social welfare in Mozambique. She hopes to contribute to and popularize debates on the political possibilities and limitations of post-work utopias. -
Sara Abbas
2021Sara Abbas will write a book about how communities formed collaborative groupings during the revolution in Sudan to achieve long-term, socioeconomic change. -
Angelo Izama
2012Angelo Izama chronicled the rise of the oil sector in Uganda to find ways to counteract the “resource curse.” -
Asim Rafiqui
2012Photojournalist Asim Rafiqui used a variety of media to present a more nuanced and personal perspective on the issue of access to justice in Pakistan. -
David Cole
2012As an Open Society Fellow, David Cole was writing a book that explores the effectiveness of civil society organizations in making human rights meaningful. -
Diarmid O’Sullivan
2012Diarmid O’Sullivan investigated whether transparency in extractive industries led to greater accountability in resource-rich countries. -
Jacob Dlamini
2012Jacob Dlamini’s work examines the lingering effects of the apartheid-era culture of secrecy on South Africa’s efforts to forge a democratic and open society. -
Jameel Jaffer
2012Jameel Jaffer worked on a book tracing the erosion of individual privacy and the expansion of official secrecy since September 11, 2001. -
James Forman, Jr.
2012As an Open Society Fellow, James Forman, Jr., was working on an account of crime and criminal justice policy in Washington, D.C., from the early 1970s to the present. -
John Feffer
2012John Feffer interviewed leading activists and writers in Eastern Europe to derive lessons about the Soviet collapse and its aftermath. -
Mark Gevisser
2012As an Open Society Fellow, Mark Gevisser examined the reach and effect of the growing global campaign for the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, and intersexed people against the backdrop of globalization. -
Martina Vandenberg
2012Martina Vandenberg created a legal clearinghouse to assist trafficking victims in the United States. -
Petina Gappah
2012Petina Gappah surveyed the rising influence of Pentecostal churches in Africa and their effect on human rights, democracy, and social justice. -
Sarah Spencer
2012As an Open Society Fellow, Sarah Spencer investigated the provision of essential services to irregular migrants across Europe. -
Suki Kim
2012Suki Kim researched the political economy of migration from North Korea and recorded the stories of ordinary people caught in the division of the two Koreas. -
Andrew Feinstein
2010Andrew Feinstein is the author of ‘The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade,’ a major history of the international weapons trade after the Cold War. -
Arun Kundnani
2010Arun Kundnani is a British writer and human rights activist who examined the shortcomings of the “hearts-and-minds” approach to militancy among Muslims in the United States and the United Kingdom. -
Hisham Aidi
2010Hisham Aidi, a political scientist, will look at how governments in Europe and North America use culture to “integrate” their Muslim communities. -
Howard French
2010Former ‘New York Times’ correspondent Howard French wrote an in-depth, journalistic account of Chinese migration to Africa in the past decade. -
Ike Okonta
2010Ike Okonta, a political analyst and writer, will study the failure of democratic and civic institutions in Nigeria almost four decades after the end of the bloody civil war in Biafra. -
James Stewart
2010Open Society Fellow James Stewart is writing a manual setting out the legal basis for prosecuting arms vendors for complicity in international crimes, such as war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. -
Jian Yi
2010As an Open Society Fellow, Chinese filmmaker Jian Yi founded the IFChina Original Studio, an innovative community art center in Ji’an, Jiangxi, China.