Women & gender in the Middle East; women’s movements and feminism in Middle East; secularism and Islamism; transnational migration, diaspora mobilization; gendering violence, war and peace; history of Iraqi women; impact of sanctions, war and occupation on Iraqi women, Iraq.
International feminist legal theories; International Law especially laws on the use of force; collective security; political and legal theories
Gender, Islam and modernity in the Middle East and Europe; Islamic feminism, secular and religious women’s movements in the Middle East, transnational migration and gender; multiculturalism and citizenship; Islam in Europe, globalization; disapora and refugee studies; the Palestine question.
Trans_feminism; Racism, Migratism and Constructions of Europeanness; Critical European Studies; Postcolonial Studies; Critical Migration Studies; Interdependencies/Intersectionality; Diaspora Studies.
Muslim Family law in the UK and Europe, Family Law, Multiculturalism, Citizenship, Islamic Jurisprudence and Human Rights, Feminist and Critical Social and Political Theories, Issues concerning the rights of Muslim women and Gender Equality.
Critical management; critical marketing; (contested) heritage marketing, management and interpretation; experiential marketing; destination branding/marketing/representation; post-conflict cultural settings; Ottoman Empire; Balkans; India
Medical anthropology, interpretive anthropology, ethnographic writing, philosophical anthropology; Central Africa.
African film and video (particularly their intersection); filmic mediations of African performance arts (music, dance, theatre); literary adaptation in Africa; contemporary film theory and 'World Cinema'; exile/immigration and violence in relation to African screen media; structures of film production, distribution, and exhibition in Africa; use of African languages in film
Colonial and postcolonial studies, especially South African literature (the Cape, Wicomb, Coetzee); gender and the culture of travel; Indian Ocean diasporas; theories of fiction and history.
Comparative Literature, 19th and 20th Century Arabic Literature, hermeneutics, modern philosophy and theory.
Modern and Contemporary Japanese history. Social and cultural history of the 20th century, especially the intersection of consumer capitalism and historical memory.
Criminal law; public international law especially international criminal law, peace and security, peacekeeping, the United Nations, gender, and human rights.
Africa; Horn of Africa; refugees and forced migration; post-conflict social integration; violence and conflict analysis; humanitarianism and humanitarian assistance; globalisation, transnationalism, diasporas and remittances; famine and food security; livelihoods in emergency contexts.
Islamic Law; Laws of South Asia (esp. Pakistan), South East Asia (esp. Indonesia) and the Arab World; Legal Anthropology; Legal Historiography (esp. Seljuk, Mamluk, Ottoman and Mughal Law); Human Rights Law; Gender, Sexuality and Law; Legal Theory; Law of Tort; Family Law; Law and Aesthetics/Art; Global Law/Governance.
Violence and conflict, governance, post colonial state building, Muslim societies, sexualities, (reproductive) health, migration, and community development/transformative education - all explored through a gendered lens. Central Asia, Latin America but currently focus mainly on West and East Africa.
Narrativity; Cultural Memory; Religion and Gender; Feminist Historiography; Postcolonial theory; Postsecularism and gender; Intellectual history in the study of religions.
Analysis and measurement of poverty; the working of rural labour markets; agrarian change and rural development; the socio-economic impact of HIV/AIDS
East Africa, particularly Uganda and Sudan, West Africa; conflict and development; forced migration; refugees; humanitarian interventions
Political violence, wars and counterinsurgencies, the political economy of military mobilities, refugees and humanitarian regimes, the politics of logistics and transport, Middle East, Israel/Palestine.
Literary and cultural studies: postcolonial studies, diaspora studies and comparative literature
Women and gender in China; gender and work; sexuality and organizations; migration; gender and intergenerational relations; ageing and family transitions; unemployment; social policy and welfare reforms in China.
Comparative Labour law; comparative company law; Legal history; Legal anthropology; Informal norms and institutions.
Middle East, especially the Arab world; international political communication; Arab cultural politics; Arab cultural studies; memory studies and oral history; Islamist movements; social movements and media; diasporas; ethnic minorities; transnational movements and communications.
History of modern South Asia, particularly the transition to independence; gender, family and law in colonial and post-colonial India
Purewal’s interests fall within two areas, both with a distinctive Punjab (India and Pakistan) focus. The first is on feminist scholarship and gender in South Asia, including female feticide and routes and barriers to girls’ education. The second area is the sociology of religion. Purewal was the principal investigator on a large project under the Religion and Society programme (AHRC and ESRC) on popular religious practices and contemporary transgressions of religious boundaries in South Asia focusing specifically on the region of Punjab across India and Pakistan.
Middle East, especially Iran; gender and democratization; diasporic cultures; ‘small media’ and political change.
East Asian film and visual media
Contract, legal history, British overseas rule and the law especially in relation to the leased territory of Weihaiwei and to ethnic Chinese communities in Hong Kong and South East Asia, law and society in South East Asia, traditional Chinese law
Nineteenth and twentieth century social and intellectual history, particularly of the Bombay Presidency; communalism and nationalism in India; debates around secularism and religious intolerance
Southeast Asian arts, aesthetics, literatures and cultural histories, with a focus on Cambodia, from the Angkorian to the post-Angkorian to the contemporary; Theravadin Buddhist arts, literatures and ritual; cultural heritage; sexual difference; deconstruction; memory and textuality.
Middle East with emphasis on the Arabian Peninsular (especially Yemen): elites, memory, religion and politics
Gender and feminist theory, politics and political participation, political apathy, gendering violence/conflict, domination and resistance, affect theory, feminist and women’s activism, gender in the Middle East, Israel-Palestine.
Dr Honarbin-Holliday is a practicing artist and works interdisciplinary exploring the intersections of gender, identity, and education. She is the author of Becoming Visible in Iran: Women in Contemporary Iranian Society (2008). She has exhibited her video and fired clay installations in Iran, Britain, Mexico, and the United States and is the recipient of the 2007 national award from the Art and Culture Secretariat at Tehran Municipality. Dr Honarbin-Holliday is currently working on a new book for I.B. Tauris titled Masculinities in Urban Iran.
Dr. Latif Tas is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Fellow at the Centre for Gender Studies at SOAS, University of London. For the period of 2017-2019, he will also be Assistant Professor at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University (New York). His work is interdisciplinary and focuses on the politics of justice, legal and political anthropology, diaspora mobilization, transnationalism, gender, citizenship, social movements, conflict and peace in Europe and Middle East, especially with reference to Turkey, Kurds, the Ottoman Empire, the UK and Germany.
Leila Zaki Chakravarti trained as an anthropologist at the American University in Cairo. She worked as a shop-floor operative in an Egyptian garment assembly factory as fieldwork for her PhD at SOAS. She is currently publishing her thesis and related papers on the intersection of class, gender and religion within workplace politics on the globalised shop-floor. She is also exploring new research avenues into issues of gender identities and local politics in the 'workplaces' of football, encompassing both professional clubs and informal urban street games, in post-Arab Spring Egypt.
Modernity; secularism; citizenship; legal pluralism; colonialism; Islamic law; Mediterranean and Maghreb studies; histories of gender, sexuality, the family in the Middle-East and North Africa; French Second Empire and Third Republic; 19th-20th centuries.
My research continued my interest in cultural memory through Iranian Jewish literature. The literary production of exiled Iranian Jewish women appears in the anthology I edited: If Salt has Memory (Five Leaves: 2008).
Dianne Otto is Francine V. McNiff Chair in Human Rights Law and Director of the Institute for International Law and the Humanities (IILAH) at Melbourne Law School and a Professorial Research Associate at the Centre for Gender Studies, SOAS.
Gender Mainstreaming, Democratisation, Institutionalisation of Gender, International Organisations, Political Participation, NGOs, Women’s Empowerment, Violence against women, Domestic Violence, Gender Equality.
Sara Bertotti is the recipient of the e-FileReady Scholarship to complete an MPhil/PhD on Law and Peace Agreements at SOAS.