Dr. Isa Blumi

Isa Blumi is Associate Professor of Global History and Middle East Studies at Georgia State University, USA. His work covers the late Ottoman period and successor regimes as part of a global process that interlinks the Balkans, the Middle East, and the larger Islamic world. He researches societies in the throes of social, economic, and political transformation, thus allowing him to expand his work to include the 20th and 21st centuries. In this respect, Blumi explores processes of change induced by, for instance, refugees/migrants throughout Muslim communities scattered throughout the world as a means to question how we understand forms of social organization and the origins of violent conflict in regions as diverse as East and South Arabia, the Western Balkans, and Southeast Asia. Examples of his approach are the books Chaos in Yemen: Societal Collapse and the New Authoritarianism (Routledge 2010) and Ottoman Refugees: Migration in a Post-Imperial World (Bloomsbury 2013). Dr. Blumi has taught in the American University of Sharjah, Leipzig University, and the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva while serving on advisory boards to organizations concerned with international affairs and development.