Prof. Dr. Sophia Hoffmann

sophia.hoffmann@uni-erfurt.de

Holder of the Professorship for International Politics and Conflict Research (Faculty of Economics, Law and Social Sciences)

Contact

Lehrgebäude 1 / Raum 0144

Office hours

Thursdays, 2pm-3:30 pm, and by appointment.

Visiting address

Campus
Nordhäuser Str. 63
99089 Erfurt

Mailing address

Universität Erfurt
Staatswissenschaftliche Fakultät
Internationale Politik und Konfliktforschung
Postfach 90 02 21
99105 Erfurt

Study Counsellor BA-International Relations (Faculty of Economics, Law and Social Sciences)

Contact

Lehrgebäude 1 / Raum 0144

Office hours

Wednesdays 2-3.30 p.m. by appointment

Visiting address

Campus
Nordhäuser Str. 63
99089 Erfurt

Mailing address

Universität Erfurt
Staatswissenschaftliche Fakultät
Internationale Politik und Konfliktforschung
Postfach 90 02 21
99105 Erfurt

Prof. Dr. Sophia Hoffmann

I am an international relations scholar with a focus on international security, intelligence agencies, migration and humanitarian aid. Having carried out extensive field research in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, I hold expertise on the international relations of West Asia, and on state-society relations in the region. 

Before joining the University of Erfurt in 2021, I led an (ongoing) research group on German-Arab intelligence relations at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin, carried out a post-doctoral project at the University of Bremen and was a lecturer at the Geneva Graduate Institute. I hold a Phd from the School of Oriental and African Studies (London) and further degrees from the London School of Economics and the University of Sussex. I am the author of the book  „The Crisis before the Storm: Iraqi migrants in Syria“ (Syracuse University Press, 2016) and numerous articles in journals such as Security Dialogue, Intelligence and National Security and International Journal of Middle East Studies. My research has been supported by the EU’s COFUND programme, the Volkswagen Stiftung and the German Federal Ministry for Research and Education (BMBF). I have extensive consultancy experience and regularly carry out knowledge transfer and outreach activities in a variety of settings.

CV

Since 2017   Principal Investigator for the Junior Research Group (“Nachwuchsgruppe”) : "Learning Intelligence: The Exchange of Secret Service Knowledge between Germany and the Arab Middle East 1960-2010". Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin.

2014 - 2016  Post-Doctoral Fellow (Co-Fund/Marie Curie), Institute for International and Intercultural Studies, University of Bremen, Germany. Title of research project: "Humanitarian Action and Security in the Middle East".

2011 - 2013   Teaching fellow and course convenor, Centre for Education and Research in Humanitarian Action, Geneva Graduate Institute, Geneva, Switzerland.

Publications

Monographs and Edited Volumes

2022 Forum: Nachrichtendienstforschung, in: Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen. In print.

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

Journal Articles

2022 Sophia Hoffmann, Noura Chalati & Ali Dogan: Rethinking intelligence practices and processes: three sociological concepts for the study of intelligence, Intelligence and National Security, DOI: 10.1080/02684527.2022.2113679

2022 The geopolitical economy of state-led intelligence-commerce: two examples from Iraq and West Germany, Globalizations, DOI: 10.1080/14747731.2022.2075527.

2021  "Circulation, not Cooperation: Towards a new understanding of intelligence agencies as transnationally constituted knowledge providers", Intelligence and National Security, online 1st Juli 2021.

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: „Die politische Gegen-Topographie internationaler Migration“. Berliner Debatte Initial 2017 (4).

2017: „There is no alternative: Der Aufstieg der humanitären Hilfe in der internationalen Politik“, 5(1) Zeitschrift für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung, Heft 1 (mit Kai Koddenbrock)

2016:  “The National Body in Syria and Israel: Comparing Processes of Unity and Fragmentation”, Middle East Critique, Volume 25 (3), 229-247. (mit 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) “Wen schützen Flüchtlingslager? Care and Control im Jordanischen Lager Azraq“. Peripherie, Nr. 138/9

2012: “The Humanitarian Regime of Sovereignty: INGOs and Iraqi Migration to Syria.” Refuge 28.1, Spring 2012.

Book chapters

2021 (forthcoming) “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.

2020  "The possibilities and limits of ethnography: two examples from Syria and Jordan". In: Schlichte, Klaus and Biecker, Sarah, eds.,The Political Anthropology of Internationalized 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: Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik. (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).

Book Reviews

2018. Book review: Lisa Blaydes, State of Repression: Iraq under Saddam Hussein (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018). 376 pp. $35.00 (hb). ISBN: 978-1-4008-9032-3. In: Journal of Perpetrator Research 2.1..

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).