Behnaz Mirzai

Behnaz Mirzai is a Professor of Middle Eastern History at Brock University, Canada, and holds affiliations as Senior Guest Researcher at the Bonn Centre for Dependency and Slavery Studies, University of Bonn. She has served as Visiting Professor at the Indian Ocean World Centre, McGill University (2024), and Unité de recherches Migrations et société URMIS, Université Côte d'Azur (2023).

Her research focuses on the history of slavery and emancipation in Iran and the Middle East during the 19th–20th centuries, African diaspora studies, Afro-Iranian communities, and the evolution of African-derived religious practices such as spirit-possession cults. She combines historical and anthropological methodologies, including fieldwork in Sistan and Baluchistan, Iran.

She has authored A History of Slavery and Emancipation in Iran, 1800–1929, coedited Slavery, Islam and Diaspora, and Africa and Its Diasporas: Rethinking Struggles for Recognition and Empowerment. Her upcoming book, The Life of an Enslaved African in the Ottoman Empire and Iran: The Autobiography of Mahboob, will be published by University of Toronto Press.

• Finalist, Canadian Historical Association Wallace K. Ferguson Prize (2018)
• Special Mention, Zanzibar International Film Festival (2018) for 'Afro-Iranian Lives'