Thirty-Nine's Witness
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About

Why Thirty-Nine's Witness

Research. Context. Memory. Meaning.
39W
Thirty-Nine's Witness

witness

(noun / verb)

  • 1.

    one who sees and can speak to what happened

  • 2.

    to observe with care

  • 3.

    to be present to meaning, history, and consequence

Behind the Studio

Zeena Hamed

Founder and Research Director

My name is Zeena Hamed, and I am a cultural researcher, writer, and strategist whose work examines the relationship among culture, identity, political power, economic conditions, and public narrative.

My background combines training in sociology with a master's degree in Near Eastern Studies. This foundation informs an interdisciplinary research practice that draws from cultural analysis, political and social history, media, academic scholarship, and community knowledge.

My previous research has explored colonial and carceral power, hip-hop, respectability politics, the MENA diaspora, Palestinian education, policing, public institutions, and housing inequality. My writing has received recognition from UC Santa Barbara, including the Nancy Gallagher Prize for Best Undergraduate Essay in Middle East Studies and an Honorary Prize for Best Essay in Sociology.

Alongside my academic training, I have worked across copywriting, content writing, social media, research, and education. This experience shapes the studio's ability to move between close analysis and clear communication, transforming complex research into direction that creators, brands, and organizations can use, while keeping social media trends and analytics in mind.

Thirty-Nine's Witness was founded at that intersection: rigorous research, cultural interpretation, and practical creative strategy.

To witness is to pay close attention to what is present, what is changing, and what has been made difficult to see. It requires looking beyond the most visible version of a cultural conversation and examining the histories, communities, material conditions, and structures of power beneath it.

Culture does not emerge in isolation. Meaning develops through language, media, institutions, memory, labor, conflict, and everyday experience. A trend may appear sudden even when the conditions behind it have been forming for years. An idea may be celebrated as new after being separated from the communities and knowledge that produced it.

We approach research as an act of careful observation, historical inquiry, and interpretation. The purpose is not to deliver the most convenient conclusion. It is to clarify what is happening, why it matters, and what a creator or organization should understand before deciding how to move forward.

The Cultural Iceberg: an illustration contrasting what gets seen above the surface, including recognizable aesthetics, language in circulation, viral references, and brand-facing signals, with what produces meaning below the surface, including community memory, lived experience, political conditions, cultural inheritance, who created it first, who gets credit, who gets erased, and what participation actually means. Culture is not just what rises to the surface. Meaning lives in what holds it up.
Training & Experience

The training behind every project.

Sociology

Research into institutions, identity, inequality, communities, and social change.

Near Eastern Studies

Graduate training in history, politics, culture, language, and source-based regional research.

Cultural Research

Interdisciplinary analysis connecting media, historical context, public discourse, and lived experience.

Copywriting and Content Writing

Translating complex ideas into clear, purposeful, and audience-aware communication.

Social Media and Digital Culture

Understanding how ideas circulate, develop meaning, and produce community response online.

Education

Experience communicating across audiences and making research accessible without removing its complexity.

Build from a deeper understanding.

Tell us what you are developing, the questions you are confronting, and what you need the research to clarify.

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