Navid Fozi Visiting Fellow, AY 2017-2018
Navid Fozi is a sociocultural anthropologist whose research explores minorities, migration, and emergent forms of pluralism and nationalism in Iran and its diasporas. Fozi has conducted fieldwork with and published on ethnoreligious minorities in Iran, including his book on the Zoroastrians entitled Reclaiming the Faravahar: Zoroastrian Survival in Contemporary Tehran, (Leiden University Press, 2014), and on the Ahl-e Haqq community entitled “The Hallowed Summoning of Tradition,” (Anthropological Quarterly, 2007). He has also published on contemporary Iranian politics, including “Governmentality and Crises of Representation, Knowledge and Power in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” (Asian Politics & Policy, 2015); and “‘Neo-Iranian Nationalism,’” (The Middle East Journal, 2016).
Fozi’s main work during his tenure at ILSP: LSC from September 2017 to May 2018 consists of a book project based on his recent field research among Iranian asylum seekers in Turkey. He has conducted this ethnographic research during two years (2015–2016) that he served as a fellow of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) at the Middle East Technical University of Ankara. Tentatively entitled “Diasporic Counterpublics: Multiplicities, Challenges, and Trajectories of Iranian Asylum Seekers in Turkey,” this project explores issues that range from Islamic Shiʿi Jurisprudence, citizenship rights, border crossing, and right of asylum, to transit processes, international politics, and transnational practices.
Fozi holds a PhD and a Master of Arts in sociocultural anthropology from Boston University and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, respectively, a Master of Arts in applied sociology and a Bachelor of Arts, both from University of Texas, Dallas. Fozi has been awarded a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad for fieldwork in Iran, a Fulbright-US Scholarship based in University of Malaya for fieldwork with Iranian Diaspora in Kuala Lumpur, as well as a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the Middle East Institute of the National University of Singapore.