2025
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About
Biography
Houman Oliaei is an assistant professor of anthropology at Babson College. His research intersects the anthropology of humanitarianism, citizenship, the state, political theory, forced migration, refugee studies, and Middle East studies.
His work examines the lived experiences of displaced Yezidis (Êzîdî), an ethnoreligious minority in northern Iraq, especially in the aftermath of collective violence and mass displacement following the genocidal attacks of the so-called Islamic State in 2014.
His first book project, Yazidis on the Margins of Humanity, explores the entanglements of humanitarian intervention, forced displacement, belonging, and recognition among displaced Yezidis in Iraq.
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Book
Yazidis on the Margins of Humanity
After ISIS’s 2014 genocide, hundreds of thousands of Yazidis fled Sinjar, their ancestral homeland in northern Iraq. This book traces how they navigate the contradictions of internal displacement—caught between formal citizenship and humanitarian aid, and suspended between a traumatic past and a future they cannot securely claim.
A critical and valuable contribution to the blossoming literature on the Yezidis as well as the established literatures on humanitarianism and asylum politics.— Güneş Murat Tezcür, author of Liminal Minorities
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Publications
Selected Publications
2025
2023
2023
2021
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Contact