Prof. Dr. Sophia Hoffmann

• International Security
• Intelligence Agencies
• Political Violence
• Humanitarianism, Flight and Migration
• Regional Politics of West Asia ('Middle East').

• Further information on all research topics and research projects can be found here.

CV

• Since 2021 Junior Professor for International Politics and Conflict Research, University of Erfurt.
• Since 2017 Principal Investigator for the Junior Research Group: "Learning Intelligence: The Exchange of Intelligence between Germany and the Arab Middle East 1960-201
• 2014 - 2016 Post-Doc, Institute for International and Intercultural Studies, University of Bremen. Research project: "Humanitarian Action and Security in the Middle East".
• 2011 - 2013 Adjunct lecturer at the Centre for Humanitarian Studies, Geneva Graduate Institute, Geneva, Switzerland.
• 2012 Doctorate at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University College of London, on the topic: 'Disciplining Movement: State Sovereignty in the Context of Iraqi Migration to Syria'.
• 2005-2011 Regular stays in Syria, including several months of field research in Damascus.
• 2004-2011 Various activities in the field of journalism, NGOs and risk consulting, e.g. at Euromoney, Global Witness and Control Risks.
• 2003-2004 Master's programme 'International Relations' at the London School of Economics.
• 2002-2003 Internship at GIZ in Frankfurt and Sri Lanka.
• 1999-2002 BA International Relations and Development Studies at the University of Sussex.

Monographs and edited volumes

2023 Forum Nachrichtendienstforschung. Journal of International Relations 2 (2022).

2016: Iraqi Migrants in Syria: The Crisis before the Storm. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.

Specialised article

2023 Rethinking intelligence practices and processes: three sociological concepts for the study of intelligence, Intelligence and National Security, 38:3, 319-338. with Ali Dogan and Noura Chalati.

2022 "The geopolitical economy of state-led intelligence-commerce: two examples from Iraq and West Germany",Globalisations, online first June 2022.

2021 "Circulation, not Cooperation: Towards a new understanding of intelligence agencies as transnationally constituted knowledge providers", Intelligence and National Security 36 (6), 807-826.

2020 "Arab students and the Stasi: Agents and objects of intelligence", Security Dialogue, Online First, 31st March 2020.

2017: "Humanitarian security in Jordan's Azraq Camp", Security Dialogue, 48 (2), 97-112.

2017: "The political counter-topography of international migration". Berlin Debate Initial 2017 (4).

2017: " There is no alternative: The rise of humanitarian aid in international politics", 5(1) Zeitschrift für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung, Issue 1 (with Kai Koddenbrock)

2016: "The National Body in Syria and Israel: Comparing Processes of Unity and Fragmentation", Middle East Critique, Volume 25 (3), 229-247. (with Katherine Natanel)

2016: "International Humanitarian Agencies and Iraqi Migration in pre-conflict Syria",International Journal of Middle East Studies, Volume 48 (2) pp. 339-355.

2015: Article (peer reviewed) "Who do refugee camps protect? Care and Control in the Jordanian Camp Azraq". Periphery, No. 138/9

2012: "The Humanitarian Regime of Sovereignty: INGOs and Iraqi Migration to Syria."Refuge28.1, Spring 2012.

Book chapter

"The Iraqi migrant experience in Syria after 2003 or: The emergence of international humanitarianism in the Levant" in Knudsen, Are and Berg, Kjersti, eds, SuperCamp: Genealogies of Humanitarian Containment in the Middle East. New York: Berghahn Books. (In production)

2020 "The possibilities and limits of ethnography: two examples from Syria and Jordan". In: Schlichte, Klaus and Biecker, Sarah, eds,The Political Anthropology of Internationalised Politics. Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield.

2020 "Humanitarian Corridor"; "Sovereignty"; "Impartiality"; "International Cooperation". In: De Lauri, Antonio, ed, Humanitarianism: Keywords . Leiden: Brill.

2016. "A Sovereign for All: The Management of Refugees as Nation-State Politics". In: De Lauri, Antonio, ed, The Politics of Humanitarianism. London: IB Tauris.

Working Papers

2019: "Why is there no IR scholarship on intelligence agencies? Some ideas for a new approach", ZMO Working Paper Series.

2016: Turkish immigration politics and the Syrian refugee crisis. Berlin: German Institute for International and Security Affairs. (with Sahizer Samuk)

2010: Research report "Sovereignty in the Lives of Iraqis in Damascus", CBRL Bulletin 5.1.

2007: Iraqi Refugees in the Syrian Arab Republic: A Field-Based Snapshot, Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, DC: Brookings Institution. (with al-Khalidi, A. and Tanner, Victor).

Reviews

2018. book review: Lisa Blaydes, State of Repression: Iraq under Saddam Hussein (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018). 376 pp. .00 (hb). ISBN: 978-1-4008-9032-3. In: Journal of Perpetrator Research2.1.

2015. book review: Al-Ali N. and Al-Najjar, D. 2012. We are Iraqis: Aesthetics and Politics in a Time of War. Syracuse: SUP. Review of Middle Eastern Studies, 47 (2).

2012. book review: Kern, K. 2011. Imperial Citizen: Marriage and Citizenship in the Ottoman Frontier Provinces of Iraq. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, Review of Middle Eastern Studies, 46 (2).