Asma Rahimyar

Asma’s research revolves around conducting critical translatory work between the state and society, with the objective of identifying what may be done to address hermeneutical lacunas extant within the realms of refugee, asylum, and immigration law, transitional justice, and humanitarian discourses. 

In this vein, Asma is interested in understanding how communities which have experienced cultural trauma conduct their own meaning-making alongside engaging in social performance aimed at rendering their experiences intelligible within relevant legal and institutional paradigms. She is also interested in examining whether there are cultural structures which facilitate the shared mediation of—and resistance towards—these statist paradigms across individual and collective subjectivities. 

Before pursuing her PhD at Yale, Asma received a BS in Political Science and a BA in Philosophy from Southern Connecticut University, as well as an MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies and an MSc in Political Theory Research from the University of Oxford. She is a Rhodes Scholar and a Truman Scholar.