Centre for the Study of Islam in the Contemporary World

Dr Sayed Mahdi Mosawi

Sayed Mahdi Mosawi is an Open Society University Network (OSUN)-Alwaleed Fellow, with research interests in gender, masculinities, migration, and issues related to the Muslim diaspora.

Mahdi Mosawi

He has an outstanding international research, teaching, and outreach record and has worked in different countries including Afghanistan, Iran, Germany and recently the UK. Mosawi graduated with a sociology doctorate from Hacettepe University of Turkey in 2019. Dr Mosawi’s doctoral work concentrated on the intersectionality of culture and masculinity by focusing on the hegemonic code that can be translated to ‘honour’ within Western scholarship. This code reinforces gender inequality, so-called ‘honour’-based abuse and gender-based violence in countries like Afghanistan, where the rule of law is weak and traditional beliefs are prominent.

Mosawi contributed to conducting and writing the first-ever study on masculinities and gender inequality in changing context of Afghanistan. The research findings were published in the book ‘The Other Side of Gender Inequality: Men and Masculinities in Afghanistan’, published in three different languages. His paper on masculinities and gender intervention programs in Afghanistan achieved the American Men’s Studies Association’s annual award in 2015.

In his current project, he highlights the issue of migrant masculinities in the UK and focuses on the changes migration facilitate in gender relations within migrant families. He further teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses, “Unfolding Afghanistan in a Globalised Context,” and "Muslims in Europe" as a part of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies (MSc).

Selected publications:

- “‘You Must Keep Your ‘Honour’, a Man without ‘Honour’ Is No Man at All’: ‘Honour, Masculinity and Violence in Afghanistan.” Chap. 8 In Men, Masculinities and Honour-Based Abuse, edited by Mohammad Mazher Idriss, 128-49. Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2020. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429277726-8.

- Mosawi, Sayed Mahdi, and Volker Heins, “Past and Present Fears among Hazara Refugees in Germany,” KWI-Blog. Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI), 2021, https://doi.org/10.37189/kwi-blog/20210614-0830.

- Echavez, Chona R., Sayed Mahdi Mosawi, and Leah Wilfreda RE Pilongo. The Other Side of Gender Inequality: Men and Masculinities in Afghanistan. Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, 2016. doi:10.13140/rg.2.2.36658.89281.

- "”Gender Neither Ours nor from Our Culture, West Countries Brought It to Us": Challenges of Engaging Afghan Men in Gender Equality." International Conference on Masculinities Engaging Men and Boys for Gender Equality, New York, Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities, Stony Brook University, 2015.

Office:

Alwaleed Centre, 16 George Square, Room G.05

Email: mahdi.mosawi@ed.ac.uk