Emrah Yıldız

Emrah Yıldız is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Middle East and North African Studies at Northwestern University, specializing in socio-cultural anthropology of cross-border mobility and region formation. His research bridges political economy, religious studies, and social geography, with a focus on Iran, Turkey, and Syria. He holds a PhD from Harvard University (2016) and has been recognized with the Malcolm H. Kerr Award for his dissertation on Iranian pilgrimages.

Yıldız’s work examines ritual practices like saint visitation (ziyarat), contraband commerce, and asylum regimes. His monograph Zainab’s Traffic (2024) analyzes Iranian pilgrims’ journeys to Syria via Turkey, redefining ritual as a mobility-driven practice intertwined with borders, economies, and religion. He edits the Journal of Cultural Economy and co-edits volumes on Gezi Protests and Southwest Asian economies.

His grants include support from Gerda Henkel Stiftung, Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the Buffett Institute. Current projects explore queer asylum dynamics and cross-border trade under sanctions. Yıldız teaches courses on migration, Middle Eastern studies, and global Iran studies, serving as a Crown Junior Chair in Middle East Studies (2020–2023) and Alice Kaplan Institute Faculty Fellow (2019–2020).

Yıldız’s research spans ethnographic and archival work in Iran, Syria, Turkey, Germany, and Lebanon. He is affiliated with Northwestern’s Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Program and co-leads the Colloquium for Global Iran Studies (CoGIS).