Jaafar Alloul is Assistant Professor in Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University. He obtained his joint PhD degree from the University of Amsterdam and KU Leuven in 2021. Before coming to Utrecht, he held a postdoctoral fellowship in migration sociology at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore, and was a Visiting Scholar in Residence at Georgetown University in Qatar.

His research deals with transnational class-making in global migration, social (im)mobility in relation to racialization in Europe, and state and nation-building in the Middle East. He combines anthropological field methods with fine-grained analyses in cultural sociology and political economy, seeking to advance, among others, the canon of Pierre Bourdieu for benefit of migration and mobility studies in Europe. Dr Alloul has carried out extensive fieldwork in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar. He is currently working on a book project about human capital development in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, exploring societal transformation in the Gulf Arab states through the lens of state-sponsored (medical) science migration to Europe and North America. He also has applied research experience with the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

_{Research and teaching interests}

Political anthropology; anthropology of the state; migration and mobility; transnational class-making; citizenship and belonging; critical race studies; Islam; political economy; decoloniality; radicalization; refugees; UNRWA; state and nation-building; mega-events; urban anthropology; highly-skilled migration & white-collar labor; medical science migration; human capital development; geopolitics; Middle East & North Africa region; Persian Gulf; Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states; United Arab Emirates; Qatar; Saudi Arabia; Iraq; Iran; Lebanon.