Nizar Messari

Nizar Messari will be Rice Fellow at the Council on Middle East Studies during the academic year 2021-22. Originally from Al Akhwayn University in Ifrane, Morocco, Nizar has had a career that took him to Brazil, the United States and Morocco. Nizar came to Middle East Studies through the field of International Relations (IR), as the question he has consistently tried to tackle over the years is “Is studying/teaching IR similar depending on whether one does it in Brazil, Morocco, France or in the United States?” This is a question that can be asked in many other fields, but it is particularly relevant in IR since the latter has developed as a state-centered Anglo-Saxon discipline, and has progressively become globalized, attracting scholars from all over the world and from many different perspectives. His current project consists of exploring answers to that same question focusing on security related issues in North Africa and the Middle East. Nizar Messari has taught at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro -PUC-Rio- (Brazil) as well as at the Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ). He has published in academic journals such as Security Dialogue, Review of International Affairs, Refugee Survey Quarterly, Journal of North African Studies, Contexto Internacional, Politica Externa and Cultures & Conflits, in English, Portuguese, French and Arabic.