Alessandro Monsutti became a member of the faculty in 2010, after having taught at the Graduate Institute of Development Studies from 2003 to 2007. He is trained as a social anthropologist, has been a research fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies (1999-2000) and Yale University (2008-2010), as well as a grantee of the MacArthur Foundation (2004-2006). He has also been Research Associate at the Refugee Studies Centre (University of Oxford) and the Laboratoire d’anthropologie des institutions et des organisations sociales (National Centre for Scientific Research, Paris). In addition, he has worked as a consultant for organisations such as the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation as well as the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit.
Alessandro Monsutti has conducted multi-sited research since the mid-1990s in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran to study the modes of solidarity and cooperation mobilised in a situation of conflict and forced migration. He has subsequently broadened the geographical scope of his research to include members of the Afghan diaspora living in Western countries. This led him to analyse war and post-conflict reconstruction in the light of the social networks and economic strategies developed by refugees and migrants, and – more generally – to address theoretical and methodological issues related to globalisation. He is currently researching the political economy of Afghanistan through the circulation and use of transnational resources with the intention to highlight how the action of international agencies and non-governmental organisations contributes to the emergence of new forms of sovereignty and governance.
He currently heads the following project: "Diasporas et conflits: pratiques transnationales et stratégies socio-économiques de la jeunesse tamoule sri lankaise en Europe".
Prof. Monsutti is also the author of War and Migration: Social Networks and Economic Strategies of the Hazaras of Afghanistan (Routledge, 2005) and the co-editor of The Other Shiites: From the Mediterranean to Central Asia (Peter Lang, 2007), Entre ordre et subversion: logiques plurielles, alternatives, écarts, paradoxes (Karthala, 2007), and of Le monde turco-iranien en question (Karthala, forthcoming in 2008). He is a founding member of ethnographiques.org , an online journal.
Selected Publications Related to Global Migration Issues:
Books:
Migrations et développement, un mariage arrangé / Migration und Entwicklung: eine Zweckallianz, Genève: IHEID, Annuaire suisse de politique de développement (vol. 28/2), edited with Denise Efionayi-Mäder, Gérard Perroulaz and Catherine Schümperli Younossian, 2008, 271 p. / 286 p.
The Other Shiites: From the Mediterranean to Central Asia (edited with Silvia Naef and Farian Sabahi), Berlin, New York, Oxford, etc.: Peter Lang, 2007, 266 p.
Entre ordre et subversion: logiques plurielles, alternatives, écarts, paradoxes (Edited with Suzanne Chappaz-Wirthner and Olivier Schinz), Paris: Karthala, 2007, 227 p.
War and Migration: Social Networks and Economic Strategies of the Hazaras of Afghanistan, New York & London: Routledge, 2005, 328 p. [translation of Guerres et migrations].
Guerres et migrations: réseaux sociaux et stratégies économiques des Hazaras d’Afghanistan, Neuchâtel: Institut d’ethnologie; Paris: Maison des sciences de l’homme, 2004, 364 p.
Articles/Chapters:
"The Transnational Turn in Migration Studies and the Afghan Social Networks", in: Dawn Chatty and Bill Finlayson (ed.) Dispossession and Displacement: Forced Migration in the Middle East and North Africa, British Academy Occasional Papers 14, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, pp.45-68.
"Food and Identity among Young Afghan Refugees and Migrants in Iran", in: Dawn Chatty (ed), Deterritorialized Youth: Sahrawi and Afghan Refugees at the Margins of the Middle East, New York, Oxford: Berghahn, 2010, pp.213-247.
"The Contribution of Migration Studies and Transnationalism to the Anthropological Debate: A Critical Perspective", in: Cédric Aubert, Mohamed Kamel Doraï (eds), Migration in a Globlised World: New Research Issues and Prospects, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press (IMISCOE Research), 2010, p. 107-125.
"Les gueules noires du Baloutchistan: regards sur la migration afghane au Pakistan", Tsantsa: Revue de la Société suisse d’ethnologie 12, 2007, pp.6-23 [essay in visual anthropology]
"Image of the Self, Image of the Other: Social Organization and the Role of ‘Ashura’ among the Hazaras of Quetta (Pakistan )", in: Alessandro Monsutti, Silvia Naef, Farian Sabahi (eds), The Other Shiites: From the Mediterranean to Central Asia, Bern , Berlin , etc.: Peter Lang, 2007, pp.173-191
"Migration as a Rite of Passage: Young Afghans Building Masculinity and Adulthood in Iran", in: Iranian Studies, Vol.40, No.2, 2007, pp.167-185
"Au-delà de la figure du réfugié: la reproduction des liens sociaux en situation migratoire (le cas afghan)", in: Aminah Mohammad-Arif et Jean Schmitz (éds), Figures d’Islam après le 11 septembre: Disciples et martyrs, réfugiés et migrants, Paris: Karthala, 2006, pp.227-256
Afghan Transnational Networks: Looking Beyond Repatriation, Kabul : AREU ( Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit), 2006, 44 p.
"Beyond the Boundaries: A Methodological Perspective on Afghan Migratory Networks in the Western Countries", in: Tsantsa: Revue de la Société suisse d’ethnologie 10, 2005, pp.167-171
Transnational Networks: Recognising a Regional Reality, Kabul: AREU (Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit), 2005, 12 p. / Shabakahâ-ye farâmillati: shinâsâ’ye wâqi’yathâ-ye mantiqawi, Kabul: AREU (Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit), 12 p., with Elca Stigter [Reproduced in: Promoting Livelihood and Coping Strategies of Groups Affected by Conflicts and Natural Disasters, Geneva: International Labour Office, pp.267-286]
"Entre effervescence religieuse et expression politique: l’Ashura parmi les Hazaras à Quetta (Pakistan )", in: Ethnographiques.org 8, 2005, (www.ethnographiques.org)
"En suivant les réseaux de Kaboul à New York: quelques réflexions méthodologiques sur la recherche ethnographique parmi les migrants", in: Ethnologies, Vol.27, No.1, 2005, pp.33-53
"La migration comme rite de passage: la construction de la masculinité parmi les jeunes Afghans en Iran", in: Christine Verschuur, Fenneke Reysoo (dir), Genre, nouvelle division internationale du travail et migrations, Paris: L’Harmattan (Cahiers genre et développement, no. 5), 2005, pp. 79-186
"Cooperation, Remittances, and Kinship among the Hazaras", in: Iranian Studies, Vol.37, No.2, 2004, pp.219-240
"Transnationale Überlebensnetzwerke in Kriegen: Migration und Diaspora am Beispiel Afghanistans”, in: Sabine Kurtenbach, Peter Lock (Hg.), Kriege als (Über)Lebenswelten: Schattenglobalisierung, Kriegsökonomien und Inseln der Zivilität, Bonn : Stiftung Entwicklung und Frieden / Dietz, 2004, pp.167-181
"Territoires, flux et représentations de l'exil afghan: le cas des Hazaras et des Kaboulis" (with Tina Gehrig), in: A Contrario, Vol.1, No.1, 2003, pp.61-78
"Nouveaux espaces, nouvelles solidarités: la migration des Hazaras d’Afghanistan", in: Pierre Centlivres, Isabelle Girod (éds), Les défis migratoires: Actes du colloque CLUSE, Neuchâtel 1998,
Zurich: Seismo, 2000, pp.333-342
“La société et les familles afghanes en exil: entre fragmentation et représentation communautaire”, L'/es islamisation/s. Réel et imaginaire, in: Revue d’histoire des institutions méditerranéennes (CERJEMAF), No.1, 1997, pp.327-331 [IXe réunion des chercheurs sur le monde arabe et musulman, AFEMAM, Les Chantiers de la Recherche , Perpignan, 7 et 8 juillet 1995].
