I am an anthropologist and filmmaker interested in future planning, uncertainty, crisis, migration, policy, Sufism and visual anthropology. My fieldwork focuses on the Kurdistan region in the MENA/SWANA.

I hold a PhD in Social Anthropology with Visual Media from the University of Manchester (2018). After studying international relations and political science at University College Utrecht (BA) and anthropology at Cambridge University (MPhil), I was trained in documentary filmmaking at the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology (MA). As part of my research I have produced the (short) documentary films "Bury me Here" (2021),  “Bridge to Kobane” (2019), “Future Factory” (2018) and "Haraka Baraka: Movement is a Blessing" (2014).

I currently teach the regional course "Anthropology of the Middle East" and supervise master students in (visual) anthropology. Next to my part time appointment at the University of Amsterdam, I work full time as a research fellow at the Netherlands Scientific Council for Policy (WRR) on the research project Media & Democracy. Previously, I worked at the Dutch Ministery of Foreign Affairs on the human rights and safety situation in the MENA/SWANA region and as a consultant for Andersson Elffers Felix (AEF).

Articles and book chapters

(Expected 2023) “A call from Raqqa: reconfiguring future imaginaries in forced displacement”, Special Issue on Displaced Conflict Syria, Conflict and Society Journal Volume 9, 2023.

Askari, L. (2021). “Making Heaven in a Shithole: Changing Political Engagement in the Aftermath of IS”, in Youth Identity, Politics and Change in Contemporary Kurdistan, edited by Bahar Baser and Shivan Fazil, Lexington Publishers, London.

Askari, L. (2019). “The Haqqa Movement: From Heterodox Sufism, to Socio-Political Struggle and Back”, in. Beyond ISIS: History and Future of Religious Minorities in Iraq, edited by Bayar Mustafa Sevdeeen and Thomas Schmidinger. Transnational Press London.

Askari, L. (2018). “Beyond The Insider-Outsider Dichotomy: Conducting Ethnographic Fieldwork As A Kurdish Returnee In Iraqi Kurdistan” in Research Reflections from the Field: Insider/outsider dilemma, positionally and reflexivity in Kurdish Studies, edited by Bahar Baser, Mari Toivanen, Begum Zorlu and Yasin Duman. Lexington Publishers, London.

Askari, L. (2015) “Filming Family and Negotiating Return in Haraka Baraka: Movement is a Blessing” Kurdish Studies Journal Volume 3 (2): 191 – 208.

Essays

“Shared Worlds”, From the Series: In Whose Name?, Visual and New Media Review, Society for Cultural Anthropology. September 14, 2021

“Bury me Here”, Memento, Issue no.3, Otherwise Magazine. September 8, 2021

Lana Askari interviewed by Sander Hölsgens (2020). Bridge to Kobane; Future imaginaries and visual approaches to Kurdish migration in New Cinema and the City: Migrations, edited by Ektoras Arkomanis. London Metropolitan University: Cours de Poetique

“Filming Future Imaginaries in Kurdistan”, Thematic Thread, Allegra Lab, April 20, 2017