Spyros Sofos

Spyros Sofos is a researcher at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University. He has previously been a Senior Research Fellow in International Politics at the Helen Bamber Centre for the Study of Rights, Conflict and Mass Violence of Kingston University and a Senior Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer in International Politics at Portsmouth University. He has also been Visiting Lecturer in Conflict Analysis, Nationalism and Human Rights at the University of Siena (MA in Human Rights and Humanitarian Action); in Nationalism and Multiculturalism at Tartu University; Visiting Professor at the Sts Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje; Visiting Researcher on Southeastern European Politics at the University of Oxford; Research Associate in European Studies at Istanbul Bilgi University, as well as a NATO Research Fellow.
He has been a founding member and member of the management group of the Centre for European and International Studies Research of Portsmouth University and of the Helen Bamber Centre for the Study of Rights, Conflict and Mass Violence of Kingston University, as well as director of the Mediterranean Studies Group of Portsmouth University.
His research interests include the study of social identities, collective action, conflict and conflict transformation and insecurity - his current work focuses on Muslim communities in Europe, a comparison of contentious politics in Europe and the Middle East, the mediation of Jihad, the ‘social construction’ of the Islamic State (IS) and the lived experience of politics in Turkey.
He is Coordinator of a Swedish-Turkish collaboration project on Open & Inclusive Societies for the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights & Humanitarian Law involving Lund, İstanbul and Koç universities.
He is member of the advisory board of Transconflict, a conflict transformation NGO. He has been a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Area Studies, Mediterranean Politics and the Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans and is editor of the Journal of Contemporary European Studies. He is currently editing a book series on ‘Islam and Nationalism’ (with Umut Özkırımlı) for Palgrave Macmillan.
His books include 'Islam in Europe: Public Spaces and Civic Networks' (Palgrave 2013), 'Tarihin Cenderesinde: Türk ve Yunan Milliyetçiliği (Istanbul Bilgi University Press 2013); 'Το βασανο της Ιστοριας' (Καστανιωτης 2008); 'Tormented by History: Nationalism in Greece and Turkey' (Hurst 2008), 'Nation and Identity in Contemporary Europe' (Routledge 1996).