RTG 2987: Mobility Rights in
the Global Context of Multiple Crises

Saeid Mozafari

After completing high school in Iran, I moved to Ankara, Turkey, where I began my bachelor’s degree in Sociology in 2013. In 2018, I was awarded a Türkiye Scholarship and subsequently completed my master’s degree in Sociology. In 2025, I received a SAFE Researcher Fellowship and began my doctoral project at the University of Göttingen, affiliated with the Centre for Global Migration Studies (CeMig) and the Department of Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology. Drawing on my field experience and observations in Göttingen, as well as the contextualisation and further development of my doctoral project, I have developed a socio-legal perspective at the intersection of forced migration and gender studies. In 2026, I joined RTG 2987, “Mobility Rights in the Global Context of Multiple Crises”, as a doctoral researcher, where I continue to develop my PhD research.

Alongside my academic work, I have 14 years of professional experience with local and international NGOs in Turkey, including the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey, Red Umbrella, and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). My work has focused on migration and refugee protection, supporting vulnerable Iranian, Afghan, and Syrian refugee communities in Ankara through outreach, interpretation, and access to legal, psychosocial, and protection services.


Research Project

Working Title: Between Displacement and Belonging: Negotiating Masculinities through Legal Precarity and Socio-Cultural Transformation among Refugees in Germany

My project adopts an interdisciplinary approach that brings together migration studies, critical socio-legal studies, and critical men and masculinities studies. It examines how forced displacement, encounters with complex border regimes, precarious legal status, and processes of social, cultural, and economic adaptation reshape patriarchal family relations and contribute to the negotiation and transformation of masculinities among refugees living in Göttingen.
The project first explores refugees’ socio-cultural and class backgrounds, as well as their experiences and narratives of forced migration. This provides insights into how participants understand and experience gender, migration, legality, and social change. Building on these biographical and experiential accounts, the research adopts a critical socio-legal perspective to examine asylum procedures and the interconnected relationship between legal precarity and masculinities.


Selected Publications

  • Book, (2026 in Turkish, manuscript under review): Tracing the Protests in Iran: Popular Uprisings from 2017 to 2022 [İran’da Protestoların İzinde: 2017’den 2022’ye Halk Ayaklanmaları], Edited and Translated by: Mehrdad Emami and Saeid Mozafari, Ayrıntı Publications.
  • Peer-reviewed Article: An Intersectional Analysis of the Migration Experiences of Iranians in Ankara (2025) Reflektif: Journal of Social Sciences, DOI: 10.47613/reflektif.2025.230 (In Turkish).
  • Book: Triple Alliance Against Masculinity: War, Migration, and Poverty in the Case of Syrians in Ankara (2023), Nobel Academic Publication. ISBN: 978-625-393-088-2. (In Turkish) Link: https://tinyurl.com/2agzfh3t
  • Book Chapter: Masculinities at The Crossroad: War, Migration and Urban Poverty in The Case of Syrian Men in Ankara, The Migration Conference Selected Papers (2021). ISBN: 978-1-80135-097-6. (In English) Link: https://tinyurl.com/2yldhxh7


Conference Presentations

  • From Femininity to Femininities. Rehearsal for an Intersectional Gender Paradigm, (2026) Emerging Forms of ‘Muslim Masculinities’: Forced Migration and Precarious Living Conditions.
  • The 15th Conference of the European Sociological Association, (2021) An Attempt to Understand the Crisis in Masculinities of Poor Syrian Refugee Men in Ankara, Turkey.
  • The Migration Conference, London (2021) Masculinities at The Crossroad: War, Migration and Urban Poverty in The Case of Syrian Men in Ankara.
  • International Ethnomusicology Symposium - Music and Politics (2017) De-feminization and Removal of the Instruments in Music and the Downfall of the Ideology of 1979 Iranian Revolution.