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Azar Masoumi

Associate Professor

About

I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. I study state-controlled refugee and migration regimes (particularly in Canada), affective and everyday life of revolutions (particularly in relation to Iran), and race, repression and subalternity (particularly in relation to Palestine).

My multi-method, genealogical research on Canadian refugee protection (published by UBC Press in 2023) was shortlisted by the Canadian Law and Society Association for the W. Wesley Pue Book Prize. Some of the findings of my SSHRC IDG-funded research on language interpretation services for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression (SOGIE) refugees in Canada are available in a public brochure here. This project has also led to the creation of an open access culturally attuned training for refugee language interpreters who work with sexual and gender diverse clients, accessible here. You may visit my online Oral History archive on everyday memories of the 1979 Iranian revolution (created with Ronak Ghorbani and funded by a Carleton University-SSHRC Knowledge Mobilization Exchange Grant) at www.enghelabshod.ca.

I have two ongoing research projects. First, I am studying why young people engage in political action under conditions that offer little hope for meaningful change. In this study I theorize the affective politics of youth-engaged social movements by considering the question of hope and hopelessness.

Second, I am investigating the medium and long-term effects of prolonged non-citizenship on Iranian nationals who apply to the Mahsa Amini policy to extent their temporary residence in Canada. This longitudinal study traces and documents the human costs of chronic non-citizenship.  

I am currently accepting graduate students interested in the fields of critical migration and refugee studies, political sociology, and socio-legal studies, and welcoming inquiries about specific areas of supervision.

Selected Publications

Chanie, Bantayehu, Christina Clark-Kazak, Azar Masoumi, Delphine Nakache, and Allan Reesor-McDowell. 2025. “Filling the gaps in housing for refugee claimants: The role of non-governmental organizations across Canada.” Canadian Diversity/Diversité Canadienne 21 (1): 21-24. 

Masoumi, Azar. 2024. “‘You Didn’t Have to Pay Me’: The Meanings of Monetary Incentives in Interview Research.” International Journal of Qualitative Methods.

Masoumi, Azar. 2024. “The Revolving Door of Im/migration: Canadian Refugee Protection and the Production of Migrant Workers.” Social and Legal Studies 33 (4): 582-600.

Masoumi, Azar. 2023. “‘Refugees Are (Not) Welcome Here’: The Paradox of Protection in Canada.” Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

Masoumi, Azar and Ronak Ghorbani. 2023. “Spatial Histories: Geography, Memory, and Alternative Narratives of the Iranian Revolution of 1979.” International Public History 6 (1): 31–41.

Masoumi, Azar. 2022. “Fast Refugee Protection: Temporality and Migration Control.” Social & Legal Studies 31 (2): 197–215.

Masoumi, Azar. 2021. “Contagious Terror: Violence, Haunting and the Work of Refugee Protection.” Studies in Social Justice 15 (3): 475-496.

Masoumi, Azar. 2020. “‘Some Nice Latin American Music Will Be Played by a Tape Player’: Anti-Racist Critique and the Multicultural State.” Social identities 26 (5): 705–718.

Masoumi, Azar. 2020. “The Battle of Numbers: Refugee Protection, Race, and Neoliberal Politics of Bureaucratic Efficiency.” Oñati Socio-Legal Series 10 (6): 1084-1106. Published online 2019.

Masoumi, Azar. 2019. “The Politics of “Doing Exactly Nothing”: Feminist Legal Change and Bureaucratic Administration of Refugee Protection.” Feminist Legal Studies 27 (3), 243-261.

Masoumi, Azar. 2019. “‘Come Out and Be Free!’: Coming Out and the (International) Government of Sexualities.” In Governing the Social in Neoliberal Times, edited by Deborah Brock. University of British Columbia Press.

Masoumi, Azar. 2018. “Compulsory Coming Out and Agentic Negotiations: Toronto QTPOC Narratives.” In Queering Urban Justice: Queer of Colour Formations in Toronto, edited by Jin Haritaworn, Ghaida Moussa, and Syrus Marcus Ware. University of Toronto Press.

Masoumi, Azar. 2016. “(Stop) Deporting Pegah: Sovereignty, (Public) Sex, and (Life)/Death.” Social Justice 43 (4), 22-43.

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