Political economy of labour migration, class and capitalism in the Middle East. With a focus on the the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Palestine, and the dynamics of regional accumulation.
International Relations Theory; International Security; Migration and Diaspora Mobilization; Globalisation and Global Governance; Transnational Identity Movements
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.
Islamic Law, International and Comparative Human Rights Law, Public International Law, Human Rights & Islamic Law, especially interaction between International Law, Human Rights Law, and Islamic Law in Muslim States. Appointed as Independent Expert on the Situation of Human Rights in the Sudan by the UN Human Rights Council at its 19th Session on 23rd March 2012.
Malay and Indonesian classical and modern literature and culture; Islam in the Malay-Indonesian world; Islamic literature of South East Asia; comparative study of South East Asian literatures; Malay philology and traditional literature sufism in Malay literature
Architecture, sculpture and painting in South Asia, especially in southern India; pilgrimage and sacred geography; material religion; colonialism and material culture.
Arab and early Persian painting and the arts of the Islamic book in general, including the production of manuscripts of the Qur'an; art and material culture of the Islamic world; Fatimid art and architecture; the arts of Islamic Spain; artistic contacts between the Islamic World and Europe; aspects of contemporary Islamic art.
Africa: economics of Africa, political economy of development, political economy of war and peace in southern Africa, and the economics of cashew production, processing and trade
Geopolitics of Eurasia, Labour migration regulatory regimes in Russia and Kazakhstan, China's Belt and Road Initiative and effects on Central Asia, Politics in Central Asia, Development strategies in the Russian Far East
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
Music in the Mande world; Music of Mali, Guinea, Guinea Bissau; gender and music in West Africa; popular musics of Atlantic Africa; childhood music learning in West Africa; Cuban music, especially son and rumba; radio as a medium; and the world music industry.
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.
I have been Professor of Economics at SOAS since 1992, having travelled the short distance from Birkbeck College where I was Professor of Economics, having been a founding member of the Department in 1972.
Swahili and Gĩkũyũ Language and Linguistics. Translation and Literacy in African Languages. Culture and Society of East Africa, Latin America and the African Diaspora.
Christianity; recent developments in African Christianity; the socio-political role of religion in Africa Socio-political role of Christianity in Africa; Africa's new charismatic churches
Modern and contemporary arts of Africa, including its histories of photography; visual and material cultures of West Africa, and their linkages to diasporic arts past and present; the arts of the Benin kingdom, masquerade, textiles and other art forms in southern Nigeria, as well as a particular focus on contemporary arts in Nigeria.
Ben is an Associate Professor in Environment and Development Economics at the Department of Geography and Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science. He obtained a PhD in Economics from University College London in 2005. His research includes social discounting for long-term public projects, the economics of water resources and the economics of agriculture and food security. He has served as a Consultant for numerous international organisations, including the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the World Wide Fund for Nature. He has also advised governments in the UK, USA, Norway, China, Namibia and Pakistan on various aspects of environmental policy.
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.
International finance for development and the economic reform programmes associated with IMF and World Bank finance to developing countries; the links between macro-economic policy and agricultural performance in sub-Saharan Africa; the gender dimensions of economic liberalisation and globalisation; and the political economy of economic reform in the Middle East and North Africa. Cross-cutting these subject areas are two geographical areas of specialisation, namely sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on Ghana and Eastern and Southern Africa, and the Middle East and North Africa.
Judaism in Hellenistic and Roman times; rabbinic literature; social history of Jews in late antiquity; American Jewish history and literature, Jewish identity, gender studies
Ethnomusicology; anthropology; Korean music; music traditions in Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Thailand, and Siberia; studies of religion; composition; education; shamanism; early keyboard instruments, players and restorers
General descriptive linguistics, Arabic, Persian, North American Indian languages, dialects and oral literature of the Arabian Peninsula - in particular the dialects of the Arabian bedouin, covering the dialects of the Al Dhafir, Mutair, Al Murrah and Rwalah tribes; Lakota (Siouan), Cree (Algonquian)
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.
China: Hong Kong and Guangdong Province (PRC) Chinese media, newspapers, television, journalism, popular culture, Internet and telecommunications, theatre, anthropological knowledge, practice and performance
Sociality, belonging, and exclusion across cultural domains and scales; social constitution of the self; intersubjectivity; kinship/relatedness; psychological states; anthropology of experience; language and thought; tourism; heritage. Europe; Jewish world; zones of tourism encounter; global flows and imaginaries.
Classical and modern Hindu law; Muslim Law; Laws of South Asia; Family law; Comparative law; South Asians in the UK; Immigration law; Ethnic minorities
Classical and Modern Persian literature, Orientalism in 18th-20th century Europe, Middle Eastern minority writers in Europe, Diaspora studies, music performance, translation studies
The regulation of multinational enterprises, international corporate governance and corporate social responsibility, foreign investment law, WTO law and practice, competition law, international commercial law and development.
Post-Soviet law and legal/institutional reform in Central Asia and CIS; law and development (markets and globalisation in developing and transitional states); law, governance and post-conflict reconstruction; human rights.
The anthropology of personhood, social theory and poststructuralism, religion (especially Islam), the anthropology of the gift and of Islamic economics, Indonesia and South East Asia.
Iran, Afghanistan and the Middle East, in particular gender issues in Iran. Women’s employment, feminism, war, conflict, diaspora, Iran in the Middle East.
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.
Ethnography of western India; social theory and the Indian Ocean; disaster and reconstruction anthropology; post-colonial rural change; infrastructure development in South Asia
Arabic Literature Classical and Modern; Comparative Literature; Qur’an and Hadith Studies; Islamic Art; Sufism and Neoplatonism; Refugee and Exile Studies
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
Urdu literature; Postcolonial literature and theory; gender studies; South Asian writing; Pakistani literature and culture; Multiculturalism; Muslim Studies
Anthropology of religion, theory in the study of religions, continental philosophy, Gramsci and religion, intercultural and inter-religious dialogue, minorities (Dalits), mysticism and heresy, non-Western Christianities, Mediterranean anthropology; South-Asia (India, Bangladesh), Sardinia, world philosophies.
I specialise in the Arabic and Hebrew dance songs of al-Andalus [muwashshah and zajal] 1100-1350, and their possible overlaps into the musics of Early Europe. Migrant musics. For many years I worked as an activist around the motor industry [Ford and FIAT]. Migrant labour and new class compositions. I am a translator of the theoretical writings of the Italian revolutionary movement (A. Negri et al]. I am currently working on a major project of the musics of the Kurdish migrant communities in France and elsewhere. With a special interest in establishing Music Rooms in all places where migrants and refugees are aggregated “The Music Room Project”.
