Ramil Zamanov, Ph.D., is a queer ethnographer whose research focuses on queer migration, authoritarianism, homonationalism, sexual democracy, and resistance in the post-Soviet space, particularly Azerbaijan. They received their MA in Gender Studies from the Department of Gender Studies at Charles University and subsequently earned their PhD jointly from Charles University and the University of Bern with a dissertation titled “Queer in Azerbaijan: State Violence and Practices of Resistance,” which is currently being developed into a book with Berghahn Books.

They have served as an Adjunct Lecturer at the Institute of Ethnology at Charles University, teaching BA and MA courses on “Gender and Sexuality in the Post-Soviet Context,” “Gender, Peace and Conflict,” “Gender in the South Caucasus,” and “Introduction to Masculinity Studies.” Between 2023 and 2025, they were affiliated as a Visiting Researcher with Brown University, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and the Complutense University of Madrid.

Their work has appeared in leading Q1 journals, including Critical Military Studies, Central Asian Survey, and Conflict and Society. They have presented their research at major international conferences such as EASA, ISA, EFRC, and BISA. Additionally, they co-organized the workshop “Challenges of Doing Queer-Feminist Ethnography” with Prof. Silvia Posocco, funded by the Swiss Graduate Program in Anthropology in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, and “Voices; Countervoices: Competing Narratives for Diasporic Mobilizations via the Digital Medium” with Dr. Sanam Roohi, funded by the Centre for Advanced Internet Studies in Bochum, Germany. In 2025, they were elected to the Board of ATGENDER, the leading European network for feminist research, education, and documentation, and currently serve as an executive member of ATGENDER’s Book Series Working Group.

From 2026 to 2028, they will hold a prestigious Humboldt Research Fellowship at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Free University of Berlin for the project “Enforced Mobility in Authoritarian Regimes: Queer Immigration from Azerbaijan to Spain.” The project examines the consequences of Azerbaijan’s queer-phobic policies and the resulting emigration of queer individuals to Spain, where a dedicated support infrastructure has emerged in recent years. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted with transnational support networks and within shelters for queer refugees in Spain, the project analyzes forms of transnational solidarity, as well as the everyday lives, experiences, and perspectives of queer refugees navigating displacement and resettlement.