Sophia Balakian
Sophia Balakian
Assistant Professor
Migration and borders, humanitarianism, securitization, kinship and family, East Africa, the Horn of Africa, North America
Fall 2025: On leave from teaching as a fellow at the Center for Humanities Research
Sophia Balakian is a sociocultural anthropologist and a scholar of forced migration.
Her book, Unsettled Families: Refugees, Humanitarianism & the Politics of Kinship,” (Stanford University Press, 2025), examines the post-9/11 securitization of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, and the ways in which people from Somalia and DR Congo navigate bureaucratic systems and security technologies that structure humanitarian programs today. The book centers the role of kinship and family in refugee resettlement programs, and how policy definitions intersect with the ways in which people rebuild families and communities in the aftermath of displacement. The book is based on long-term ethnographic research between Nairobi, Kenya and Columbus, Ohio.
Balakian’s new research project investigates the ways in which people originally from east Africa navigate U.S. policies and practices around caregiving, especially childcare. How do people re-imagine what constitutes good care in new social and economic environments?
Balakian's research has been funded by the Mellon Foundation/American Council of Learned Societies, The Social Science Research Council, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation, among other institutions. From 2019-2020, and 2022-2023, she was an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. She has published in American Ethnologist, The Journal of Refugee Studies, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Anthropologica, African Studies Review, and in the edited volume, Global Perspectives on the United States.
Selected Publications
Balakian, S. 2020 “Navigating Patchwork Governance: Somalis in Kenya, National Security, and Refugee Resettlement.” African Studies Review 63(1):43-64.
Balakian, S. and V. Dominguez. 2019 “The Promise and The Lost City of Z: Diasporas, Cinematic Imperialism, and Commercial Films.” Anthropologica 61(1):150-61.
Balakian, S. 2016 “‘Money Is Your Government’: Refugees, Mobility, and Unstable Documents in Kenya’s Operation Usalama Watch.” African Studies Review 59(2):87-111.
Grants and Fellowships
2025 Fellow
Center for Humanities Research, George Mason University
2022-23 Academy Scholar
Harvard Academy for International & Area Studies
2019-20 Academy Scholar
Harvard Academy for International & Area Studies
2016 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship,
American Council of Learned Societies
2016 Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (declined),
Woodrow Wilson Foundation
2013 Dissertation Fieldwork Grant,
The Wenner-Gren Foundation
2013 International Dissertation Research Fellowship,
Social Science Research Council
Education
PhD, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Anthropology
BA, Cornell University, Anthropology, summa cum laude
In the Media
2025 "Refugee Program, Halted by Trump, Had 40 Years of Bipartisan Success," Los Angeles Times. Feb. 24. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2025-02-24/trump-refugee-resettlement-program
2020 “Refugee Families in the Era of Global Securitization.” Interview with Chris Gratien. Ottoman History Podcast. July 29. https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2020/07/family-reunification.html
2017 “What Does Refugee Vetting Look Like on the Ground?” Expert Viewpoints. March 21. https://news.illinois.edu/blog/view/6367/476962
2016 “Risk, Refugees, and the Politics of Blame: the U.S. After the Paris Attacks.” Unstratified. January 25. https://unstratifiedarchaeology.wordpress.com/2016/01/25/risk-refugees-and-the-politics-of-blame-the-us-after-the-paris-attacks/