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Dr. Behnaz Hosseini

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Behnaz Hosseini completed her doctoral research at the Institute of Oriental Studies at the University of Vienna, with a focus on Yārsān, a religious minority in Iran, and trans-nationalism in Sweden. Her research interests include religious minorities in Iran and Iraq, forced migration, and integration. In the course of her research she has been involved in multiple projects including “Trafficking and Slavery under ISIS: Trauma and Rehabilitation of Yezidi Female Survivors,” and “Analysis of Forced Migration and Displacement of Iraqi Religious Minorities in Austria.” She was a research fellow in the Department of Sociology, University of Alberta, where she conducted a research project on Iranian religious minorities while doing field work on the Kurdish communities in Alberta. She is an expert on refugee and resettlement issues, with an extensive research background on ethno-religious conflict. Between 2014 -2017, she visited numerous refugee camps in Iraq and interviewed asylum-seekers in Germany and Austria. She has also written a book on Iraqi religious minorities and immigrants in Austria (Lit Verlag, October 2018), focusing on the cultural dynamics of resettlement and attempts made by these groups to preserve their ethnic and religious identities. During 2017-2018 she conducted research on child marriage and suicide within the Kurdish community in Iran.

Research Interests

Dr. Hosseini's research interests include virtual enthnography, visual anthropology, comparative religions, gender in conflict, violence in war, religious transnationalism and religious minorities in the Middle East.

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