Since April 2025, Karim Zafer has been working as a Postdoctoral Researcher in Anthropology in the Department of Sociology/Anthropology at the University of Trier. Previously, Karim served as a Project Manager at the International Office of the University of Cologne and as Head of its Liaison Office in Cairo. In April 2024, he earned a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Cologne with a dissertation titled “Unaccompanied Minors and Youth Refugees Making a Family and a Future.” In 2016, Karim had already completed the interdisciplinary Master’s program Culture and Environment in Africa at the same university. From 2018 to 2023, Karim was also employed as a Research Associate at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Cologne.
Karim’s research interests include critical migration studies, refugee studies, transnationalism, citizenship studies, the anthropology of youth, and decolonial theory.
Research Focus
• Refugee Studies
• Critical Migration Studies and Border Regimes
• Citizenship Studies
• Anthropology of Youth
• Anthropology of the MENA Region
• Anthropology of the Future
Contact: zafer[at]uni-trier.de